owed
this rite from the Israelites.

Spencer and others say that in the early history of the Christian
religion, St. Paul and his Disciples did not believe in circumcision,
while St. Peter and his followers practiced it. Spencer mentions that
the Abyssinians take a phallic trophy by circumcision from the enemy's
dead body. In his "History of Circumcision," Remondino says that among
the modern Berbers it is not unusual for a warrior to exhibit virile
members of persons he has slain; he also says that, according to
Bergman, the Israelites practiced preputial mutilations; David brought
200 prepuces of the Philistines to Saul. Circumcision is practiced in
nearly every portion of the world, and by various races, sometimes
being a civil as well as a religious custom. Its use in surgery is too
well known to be discussed here. It might be mentioned, however, that
Rake of Trinidad, has performed circumcision 16 times, usually for
phimosis due to leprous tuberculation of the prepuce. Circumcision, as
practiced on the clitoris in the female, is mentioned on page 308.

Ceremonial Ovariotomy.--In the writings of Strabonius and Alexander ab
Alexandro, allusion is made to the liberties taken with the bodies of
females by the ancient Egyptians and Lydians. Knott says that ablation
of the ovaries is a time-honored custom in India, and that he had the
opportunity of physically examining some of the women who had been
operated on in early life. At twenty-five he found them strong and
muscular, their mammary glands wholly undeveloped, and the normal
growth of pubic hairs absent. The pubic arch was narrow, and the
vaginal orifice practically obliterated. The menses had never appeared,
and there seemed to be no sexual desire. Micklucho-Maclay found that
one of the most primitive of all existing races--the New
Hollanders--practiced ovariotomy for the utilitarian purpose of
creating a supply of prostitutes, without the danger of burdening the
population by unnecessary increase. MacGillibray found a native
ovariotomized female at Cape York who had been subjected to the
operation because, having been born dumb, she would be prevented from
bearing dumb children,--a wise, though primitive, method of preventing
social dependents.

Castration has long been practiced, either for the production of
eunuchs, or castrata, through vengeance or jealousy, for excessive
cupidity, as a punishment for crime, in fanaticism, in ignorance, and
as a surgical