nds on the constriction at its orifice; if the orifice is
small, the prepuce tight and inelastic, every erection, by putting the
penis-integument on the stretch, adds to its bulk,--nature naturally
trying to make up the deficiency,--the two points of resistance being
where the glans pushes it ahead, having the constricting orifice for a
hold or purchase, and the skin at the pubes, which is called upon to
furnish the extra tissue for the time being needed during erection,
which should be supplied by the prepuce--this being the only office
which I have been able to assign to this otherwise useless but very
mischievous appendage. In cases where preputial irritation produces more
or less priapism, the continued stretching of this integument causes a
marked increase in its growth, which is mostly added forward. It was on
this principle or its recognition, that Celsus devised his operations,
and on which the persecuted Jews undertook to recover their glans by
manufacturing a prepuce; and, although the trial was not reported as
being very successful, I do not doubt but that, if the skin could have
been drawn sufficiently over so as to constrict it anteriorly so as to
give the glans a purchase, as in the case of phimosis with an inelastic
prepuce, the operation could be more of a success; all that is required
is the continued extension and the prepuce might be made to rival in
length the labia majorae of the females of some African tribes, or the
pendulous buttocks of the Hottentot Venus.

I have employed the knowledge of this elasticity and source of supply of
the penis-integument, on more than one occasion, in recovering the
denuded organ with skin. A number of cases are on record where, owing to
the want of that artistic and mechanical knowledge without which no
surgeon is perfect, the operator has drawn forward the skin too tight in
circumcising, after which, owing to the natural elasticity of the skin,
the integument has retracted, leaving the penis like a skinned eel or
sausage. This accident is even liable to occur where the skin has not
been tightly drawn, but where subsequent erections have torn through the
sutures, and where the natural retraction of the skin has laid the organ
bare for some distance. I have seen a number so recorded, but do not
remember seeing any remedy suggested, it seemingly being accepted that
the recovery must take place by gradual granulation,--a necessarily very
slow process, owing to the const