hysiological condition.

There are certain conditions to life, up to the time of birth, which,
unless they then cease at once to exist, immediately become from a
physiological into very serious pathological conditions. These are well
understood, and have their reasons for existing during our pre-natal
existence; but the prepuce has no known function during uterine life or
subsequently; and there being no valid reason for its existence, there
are certainly no logical grounds for its being considered a
physiological condition, especially when the serious results attending
the most accentuated form of the above three conditions are considered,
and as its necessity, in cases of its entire absence, has not yet been
demonstrated.

It can well be said that about two-thirds of mankind are affected in a
greater or less degree with these pathological conditions, causing them
more or less annoyance. Of these, a certain percentage suffer a life of
continued misery, as a direct or indirect result of these conditions.

As to the actual necessity of a prepuce existing, or as to what
annoyances or diseases persons are subjected to who are born without it,
there is a most singular and expressive silence in medical literature.
It stands to reason that, if it is a necessity, some one person should
have found it out long ago, and there should then be some evidence to
present in relation thereto. There are cases reported in some of the
older surgeries wherein an attempt has been made, in the absence of a
prepuce, to restore or manufacture one by means of a plastic operation.
Vidal describes such an operation,[89] but there is no reason given as
to why the operation was undertaken; there is no record of any diseased
condition which it was intended either to cure or to alleviate; so that
we are left to infer that the person simply submitted to the operation
from purely cosmetic reasons. The Hebrews of Palestine, after the Roman
conquest, or those in Italy or Spain, attempted a like operation, but
not from any reason of lessened health or to restore any lacking
physiological action, their aim having simply been to hide their
identity, for the purpose of escaping persecutions, exactions, or
annoyances, either from their rulers or their fellow-citizens.

Dr. A. B. Arnold, in a paper on circumcision, read before the Academy of
Medicine of Baltimore, argues that it is not difficult to divine the
purposes of the prepuce, holding that it is neces