There has been more or less of fault-finding in regard to certain rules and ordinances being sacramental, which, from the nature of things, should have been merely advisory or suggestive, as they pertained more to the hygienic welfare of the people than to the spiritual. Thus to reason, is neither philosophical nor in concert with our knowledge of the structure of man, and of the intimate relations that exist between mind and body, or of good health and good morals. The writer has seen violent catharsis produced by bread pills, after podophyllin, castor-oil, and phosphate of soda in the most generous doses—administered as one would drop a letter in a mail-box—had completely failed; it is all in the manner and way we give a medicine or treat a disease. Certain narcotic and irritant poisons or powerful sedative agents have a physical action uninfluenced by the mind, but an intelligent physician is hardly supposed to drive at the small tack of disease with such powerful sledge-hammers. Charcot, recognizing the power of and availing himself of such a remedial agent as the pilgrimages to the Notre Dame de Lourdes, is an evidence of the intelligent and enlightened practitioner, who has learned, what the Bible taught, long, long ago, that human nature must be taken as it is found, and that, like the homely saying of Mohammed, as the mountain would not come to him, he must go to the mountain. Moses and all the Scriptural writers were well aware of this state of affairs, and their manner of using their knowledge was adapted and timed to the general intellectual development of the times.
There is one point in connection with the above that should not escape our attention, this being that, while the Hebraic creed and the people still subscribed to the theological doctrine of the origin of disease, in common with the religions then in vogue, here the connection stopped. All other creeds—not excepting Christianity—looked forward to a theological doctrine of the cure of disease. With the Hebrew, disease was looked upon as the result of some infraction on his part of some of the laws, and the consequent expression of displeasure on the part of the Deity. He was taught, however, that the observance of certain ordinances were both conducive to health and to the prevention of disease, and acceptable to God, as well as to rely upon his study and skill to cure disease. This was equivalent to teaching them that diseases arose from physical causes, and that physical means were to be used to combat them. From this arose the practice of exposing the sick in public places, that they might receive the benefit of the advice of such who might have had experience in a like case. It is from their religion that Hebraic medicine has received its foundation of intelligent philosophy that carried it in its purity through all ages, free from magic, superstition, and imposture. With other creeds and religions, medicine, disease, as well as the physical phenomena affecting nature, were believed to be the arbitrary expression of anger of their gods, and that the cure of disease, or alterations in physical phenomena, were to be as arbitrarily effected, regardless of the existence or action of physical laws. It is to be regretted that one of the sects which has sprung from the Hebraic creed, and which worships the same God, has been unable to emancipate itself or its people from the idea of an arbitrary theological doctrine of the origin and control of disease. It is this creation of a narrow-minded theology of a vaccilating, unintelligent, unphilosophical, and arbitrary God, who would neither respect nor regard the laws of his own creation, that has led the great body of physicians out of the modern churches. They do not deny the existence of the Deity, but the god of their conception is a higher and nobler god,—the Deity of Religio Medici.
When the prize for the best essay on “the power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as manifested in creation”—a series of publications known as the Bridgewater Treatises—has been nearly every other time won by physicians, among whom we may mention Sir Charles Bell, Dr. John Kidd, Dr. Peter M. Roget, and Dr. William Prout,—not only won on their own merit, but in competition with learned theologians and noted divines,—we may truly say that physicians are by no means atheists or agnostics, but that, on the contrary, they are the real exponents of a practical and intelligent religion, which they not only practice, but fully and intelligently comprehend.
CHAPTER XII.
Hebraic Circumcision.
The first mention that we meet concerning circumcision is in Genesis. It is the command of God to Abraham; in establishing the covenant with him, He said to him: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee: every man-child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Gen. xvii, 10, 11). It was also ordained that this should be extended to servants belonging to Abraham and his seed, as well as to their own children; and that in case of children it should be done on the eighth day after birth.[54] This was appointed as an ordinance of perpetual obligation on the Hebraic family, and its neglect or omission entailed being cut off from the people (12, 14). In compliance with this ordinance, Abraham, although in his ninety-ninth year, circumcised himself and all his slaves, as well as his son Ishmael. Slaves by purchase were circumcised,[55] as were any strangers, who were also circumcised before being allowed to partake of the passover or to become Jewish citizens. It was to be observed by all heathens who became converted to the Jewish faith. During the wanderings in the wilderness circumcision was not practiced, but Joshua caused all to be circumcised before they entered the promised land.[56]
The old Hebrews strictly followed the injunction to circumcise on the eighth day, and of such importance in a religious sense was this rite in their estimation that even when the eighth day fell on the Sabbath the eighth day ordinance was observed. The ordinance, however, was not blindly arbitrary, as rules were laid down for exception. For instance, whenever a family had lost two children through circumcision it did not become obligatory on that family to circumcise the third child, who was however considered as entitled to all the benefits of the congregation or of the Hebraic religion, just the same as if he had been circumcised. Again, Maimonides, or Moussa Ben Maimon, a celebrated physician and rabbi, born in Cordova in the year 1135 A.D., among his works on medicine, has left directions in regard to circumcision which have been the guides of the mohels. Among the Hebraic physicians it was considered that the child partook of the constitutional strength or feebleness of the mother; hence the rule above mentioned, in regard to exemption to circumcision, only was in operation when the two who had formerly died belonged to the same mother as the third one, who would thereby be exempt; but if the two children had belonged to another woman, and this third child of the father was not from the same mother, the rule did not exempt. The third child of the mother who had previously lost two infants at the rite was, however, to be circumcised when arrived at adult age, provided no further counter-indication occurred. The opinion that the mother gave the constitution to the child was promulgated by Maimonides and became general.
The eighth day is believed to refer to the eighth day after full term; thus, a child born prematurely is not supposed to be circumcised until eight days after it would have reached its full term, and only then if its general good condition is settled. Maimonides looked upon infantile jaundice, general debility, and marasmus as contra-indications to the performance of the rite; any erysipelatous inflammation, ophthalmia, anæmia, eruption of any kind, fever, tendency to convulsive movements—in fact, any observable departure from normal health should be allowed to pass before performing the rite. Aside from these general conditions that denoted that the operation was contra-indicated, the local condition of the organ itself also was to be examined, and if certain conditions existed the operation was to be put off. These conditions consisted in any irritation or red appearance of the prepuce, due to either inflammation or to the irritative action of the sebaceous matter underneath the prepuce, the acrid nature of these secretions being at times sufficiently virulent to produce an ulceration, even in the newborn.[57]
Among the Hebrews themselves there are those who do not look upon circumcision in a favorable light, but on something that has served its time in its own day, and within the past year a proselyte has been accepted into one of the New York synagogues without previous or subsequent circumcision, these reformed Jews looking upon adult circumcision as too painful an operation to be gone through, as they claim, unnecessarily. It must be said, however, that these persons look upon circumcision purely in a sacramental light, and simply as an arbitrary ordinance of God in the remote ages of antiquity, but which in the present century has not enough practical significance to warrant its performance on the occasion of an adult joining the congregation. These persons look upon it, as has been said, in a purely theological light, and ignore any and all considerations of hygiene in connection with it, claiming that if it is a simple matter of hygiene, then it is not a sacrament, and that, if it is sacramental, then the subject of hygiene has nothing whatever to do with it. The force of their reasoning and logic is very obscure and clouded, to say the least. The covenant either exists or it does not; to do away with one ordinance in any arbitrary manner is to gradually begin to crumble down the whole fabric of Judaism; for when exceptions are begun, one tenet as well as another is liable to topple over. If the rite is a sacrament, then it should be performed on all, and a proselyte should not be admitted without being circumcised, and, if a hygienic measure only, the same rule holds. These Jews evidently ignore the rationalism that governed the promulgation of the Mosaic law, and its recognition of the inseparability of the moral from the physical nature of man.