FOOTNOTE:
[10] Orthopædic Surgery, p. 14. See also Hilton, Rest and Pain, p. 276.
IV CUTTING OPERATIONS FOR THE RELIEF OF CONGENITAL PHIMOSIS; THEIR SUPPOSED ADVANTAGES.
From the preceding, the evils or dangers incurred by permitting a male child to reach adult life; or, in the event of pressing symptoms, to pass even a few weeks or months with this disability unrelieved; are sufficiently obvious. Although, as Dr. Willard (op. cit.) states, the adhesions between prepuce and glans can nearly always be broken down with sufficient readiness during the first few weeks after birth, there can be little doubt that, without conspicuous necessity, the medical practitioner will seldom care to 'make the baby cry,' and thus draw down upon himself vigorous maternal reproaches. It seems, moreover, hardly judicious to encourage any tampering by nurses or midwives, probably more or less ignorant and unskilled. We may take it for granted, therefore, that nothing will usually be done until the child is several months old; when some more energetic treatment will be requisite to remedy the condition in question. In milder cases no notice will probably be taken of the abnormality for at least several years, and its presence may be detected only by accident; the adhesions in such are trivial, and do not interfere with normal growth; hence are, as a rule, easily overcome.[11]
Although less severe measures have been from time to time brought forward and advocated, the operation of circumcision is, to all intents and purposes, the only procedure in general use for remedying congenital phimosis; and as the latter is very common, so also is the performance of this ancient sacrificial rite among that large majority of the population who are otherwise in no way committed to it. There is a simplicity and thoroughness about the little amputation which may perhaps commend it to the surgical mind; and there are unquestionably certain superficial advantages of a hygienic nature about the patient's subsequent condition; though it may be doubted whether these are by any means so considerable as has been made to appear.
However this may be, it goes without saying that no other curative proceeding has so far met with any wide favour in the medical profession; and, if one may judge from their published opinions, the leading exponents of medical practice and opinion, in this country at least, are so pleased with circumcision and its results that they would willingly see the Mosaic Laws in this particular extended to the whole Christian population, whether affected by phimosis or not. Witness Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson: