Infants of tender years must of necessity be classed in the latter of these two categories; in their case, there are also certain circumstances which tend to enhance the barbarity of the procedure; and largely to aggravate the suffering involved. Thus an American operator (at the association meeting of genito-urinary surgeons, reported in the Boston Med. and Surg. Journal, June 26, 1890) speaks of the difficulty of keeping children's knees out of the way after removal of the prepuce, and of the consequent torture to them. Even after healing, contact with flannel napkins, and other clothing, must long be very painful. There can be little doubt what would be the verdict—could they only give it utterance—upon the immediate results of the operation in question; returned by these inarticulate (if far from mute) victims of hygienic orthodoxy.[21]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The most scrupulous and minute precautions for obviating any danger to life are enjoined by the Talmud. The ceremony is not permitted to take place at all unless the child is in perfectly sound health; and that Mohel, whose conscience may convict him of having caused the death of an infant by his negligence, is forbidden ever to officiate again.
[17] A case of tuberculosis thus contracted is reported in the British Medical Journal of March 5, 1887; and twelve other instances are also mentioned in the same paragraph.
[18] The writer has been unable to discover any mortality statistics of ritual circumcision, and apparently none exist. Dr. Asher (op. cit.) makes a remark to the same effect.
[19] In the same work its author states that an unnatural smallness of the urethra is a not infrequent cause of incontinence of urine in children. In some cases therefore ascribed to congenital phimosis, may not the incontinence be merely a concomitant, and not an effect, of the latter condition?
[20] Dr. Keyes (Diseases of Urinary Organs, 1888) has been 'twice called upon to relieve by operation a phimosis resulting from a former operation.'
[21] An objection to circumcision, of wholly sentimental character, yet not the less worthy of practical consideration, may, in addition to those set forth in the text, be here noted. The parents of any child, in whom the necessity of some remedial measure for congenital phimosis has become apparent, usually express considerable relief when told that it is not necessary to make the infant 'a little Jew.'