The Barbarity of Circumcision As a Remedy for Congenital Abnormality

Part 1

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THE

BARBARITY OF CIRCUMCISION

AS A REMEDY FOR

CONGENITAL ABNORMALITY

BY HERBERT SNOW, M.D. LOND. &c.

SURGEON TO THE CANCER HOSPITAL

LONDON

J. & A. CHURCHILL

11 NEW BURLINGTON STREET

1890

PREFATORY NOTE

To state that the object of this little work is to 'put down Circumcision' under the circumstances indicated, would, besides savouring of unpardonable arrogance, irresistibly suggest analogy to the example of a too famous alderman, who was determined to 'put down Suicide.'

If, however, the facts and arguments therein set forth contribute in some small measure towards the abolition of an antiquated practice involving the infliction of very considerable suffering upon helpless infants; and sanctioned, on extremely questionable grounds, by men of eminent authority; the following pages will not have been written in vain.

More evil is wrought by want of thought, Than comes from want of heart.

GLOUCESTER PLACE, PORTMAN SQUARE: October 1890.

THE BARBARITY OF CIRCUMCISION AS A REMEDY FOR CONGENITAL ABNORMALITY.

CIRCUMCISION AS A RELIGIOUS RITE.

The earliest historical or quasi-historical notice of circumcision is to be found in Genesis xvii.; where Jahve enjoins upon Abraham the personal performance of this mutilation, as a sign of the covenant henceforward to subsist between them. Abraham, his son Ishmael, and all his male slaves forthwith underwent the prescribed operation; which thence-forward remained obligatory upon their posterity, though not without transient periods of desuetude. It was suffered to lapse during the passage of the Israelites through the wilderness, and was subsequently revived by Joshua (v. 5); again in the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes, when some of the Jews seem to have submitted to a plastic operation in order to obliterate its effects.

The compulsory performance of circumcision was re-enacted for the last time by Mattathias, in the age of the Maccabees; and the law to this effect has remained in force until the present day.

The terms in which the Deity addresses his commands to Abraham presuppose an already existing familiarity with the ritual ceremony on the part of the latter. Accordingly we find that it previously prevailed among the Colchians, Æthiopians, and ancient Egyptians of both the Upper and Lower Provinces (Gardner Wilkinson). Among the latter it appears to have become restricted, by the dawn of the historical period, to the priestly caste, and to those who desired initiation into the sacred mysteries. In the temple of Chunsu at Karnak is a delineation of the rite as performed on two young children, probably sons of Rameses II., the founder of the building. It was apparently connected with the worship of Ra, the Sun God; and a seeming allusion to it in this connection is to be found in chapter xvii. of the 'Book of the Dead.' Notices of circumcision also appear in ancient Phoenician mythology.

There can be no question of its very great antiquity, or of its wide prevalence among ancient nations. Traditional descent from a primæval Stone Age is betrayed by casual notices in Holy Writ. Thus, in Exodus iv. 25, a sharp stone is the instrument of mutilation; and in Joshua v. 2, the marginal rendering is 'knives of flints.'

The Hivites, the Canaanites (Phoenician), and many if not most of the nations with whom the Israelites were brought into contact after settlement in the Promised Land, appear to have practised circumcision at some period in their history. In the Old Testament we accordingly find the designation of 'the uncircumcised' specially reserved for the Philistines, and applied to these as a term of opprobrium.

The list of peoples by whom the circumcision of males has been, or is still, an established custom is sufficiently long. Among such races at the present day, 'an almost unbroken line may be traced from China to the Cape of Good Hope,' and unless perhaps in Europe (where comparatively slight traces of aboriginal manners and customs survive), we find the ceremony characteristic not only of savage tribes, but of nations ranking fairly high in the scale of civilisation; for instance, the Mexicans, and the ancient Aztec races of Central America. The Teanas and Manaos on the Amazon; the Salivos, Guamos, Otamocos, on the Orinoco; the negroes of the Congo, with many other tribes on both the west and east coasts of Africa, notably the Kaffirs, Bechuanas, and Hottentots; the Abyssinians (Christian), Nubians and modern Egyptians; the natives of Madagascar; most of the Australian aborigines; the Papuans, New Caledonians, inhabitants of the New Hebrides, of Java, of the Philippines, and of Fiji, are only a few that may be indicated. An approximation to the rite in the form of a slitting up of the prepuce was noticed among the Friendly Islanders by Captain Cook. Although not enjoined in the Koran, it is a universal practice among the Mohammedans, as a tradition from the ante-Mohammedan period.

A cognate operation upon females obtains among the modern Egyptians, the Nubians, the Abyssinians, as well as in many other parts of Africa among the negro races; also among the Malays on the shores of the Persian Gulf (Carsten Niebuhr), and on the banks of the Orinoco. As an ancient custom in Arabia and Egypt, it is noticed by Strabo.

Local variations of detail are found; as in the case of the Friendly Islanders just cited; and of the Madagascarians, who cut the flesh at three several times; the excised prepuce being eventually swallowed by some relative or other.

The date at which circumcision is performed varies considerably. Among the Jews, the eighth day is, of course, the selected period; probably from consideration for the sacred number seven, for the seven days of uncleanness prescribed for the parturient mother (Lev. xii. 2), and for an idea that with the second cycle of seven days the infant then properly commenced its earthly life. Among the Arabs, it is deferred till the thirteenth year; the age at which their reputed ancestor, Ishmael, was submitted to it. And every race seems to have selected for itself what was considered the most suitable time. The Turks, for example, have chosen the seventh or eighth year; the Persians circumcise boys at thirteen, girls, between the ninth and the fifteenth year; and so on.

It is thus evident, not only that the rite is extremely ancient, but that it is impossible to refer the practice of circumcision to any single source; or to doubt that it originally arose among many widely-sundered peoples, as the result of a certain stage in man's mental evolution. The once widely-spread custom of the COUVADE, and other strange aboriginal practices, afford an illustrative analogy.

Part 2

Herodotus seems to have been the author, or at least the introducer, of the cleanliness theory; according to which the ceremony was invented from motives of hygiene. Philo Judæus ascribes the custom to four causes: 1. Cleanliness; 2. The avoidance of carbuncle (Qu. cancer?); 3. The symbolisation of purity of heart; 4. The attainment of numerous offspring.

Of these, it need hardly be said that the last has no foundation in fact; and the two preceding require no remark. The idea, however, that circumcision was initiated for purposes of cleanliness has lasted to the present day, and still appears to have considerable currency. Whatever may have been the social condition of the ancient Egyptians and Arabians, on behalf of both which races, as having been the source whence Abraham derived his evident familiarity with the custom, plausible pretensions have been put forth; it is simply preposterous to imagine for a moment that the numerous savage tribes (witness the Hottentots and the Australian aborigines) who practise it, could ever have been actuated by any such considerations. Its world-wide diffusion, again, totally forbids the supposition, either of its introduction into these tribes by contact with other nations more highly civilised; or of its adoption, by the former, while in a higher stage of sociology, from which they have subsequently become degraded. And this explanation is put finally out of court by the phenomenon of an analogous rite applied in sufficiently numerous quarters to the persons of females. In order, therefore, plausibly to account for the general prevalence of this strange mutilation, we are compelled to look elsewhere; and an examination of the religious ideas which are known to actuate primitive man, will afford a clue.

Copious illustrations of the working of such ideas among peoples emerging from barbarism can be traced in almost every page of the earlier books of our Old Testament; and, even in classical mythology, although overlaid by the later developments of a high civilisation, their influence is still not entirely effaced. The principle of substitution was familiar to all the nations of antiquity, to the Israelites not the least. Witness the universal resort to sacrifices, the theory of which is well indicated by that of Isaac in Genesis xxii. Further illustrative examples are afforded by the law of the scapegoat, in Leviticus xvi.; by the offering of children to Molech (Lev. xx. 2); and by the legend of Jephthah's daughter (Judg. xi.). With this, various ceremonies, involving either mutilation or the shedding of blood, were in vogue--for example, the priests of Baal (1 Kings xviii. 28); even cutting off the hair seems to have been in the nature of a representative sacrifice.

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