1 10 240 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> An ominous sign of the growing American disenchantment with circumcision is an increasing number of papers and theses by young undergraduates and graduate scholars who are taking a very critical this hitherto taken-for-granted practice. A few years ago, it was only members of the dedicated anti-circumcision movement who were carrying out research into the history, medical rationalisations and bioethical aspects of circumcision; today we find papers being given at mainstream academic conferences, and theses written by under- and post-graduate students at prestigious universities. Recent theses by Shemuel Garber and Chris Jones are summarized here. <h2>The circular cut: Jewish and American circumcision practiced anatomised</h2> A well-researched by an American undergraduate, Shemuel Garber, particularly considers the practice of circumcision among the Jewish people, and as justified and practised by American medical authorities today. He writes in the introduction: Genital cutting has been around for so long that nobody knows when or why it began, though speculation abounds. Today, both male and female genital cutting are commonly practiced by various cultures in various regions of the world. Presently, all forms of genital cutting are almost universally regarded with disgust and often even moral indignation in the West. All forms, that is, but one. Male circumcision, a procedure in which the prepuce (or “foreskin”) of the penis is severed from the rest of the penis, permanently exposing the penile glans, is commonly practiced as a religious rite by Muslims and Jews and is routinely (though certainly not universally) practiced for non-religious reasons in the United States of America. I have a bit of personal experience with circumcision that, for the purpose of full disclosure, I will presently relate. As an infant, I, like many boys born in American hospitals, was circumcised shortly after my birth as a matter of routine. For just over a decade, my penis underwent no further marking by civilization. Then, when I was eleven, I converted to Judaism. Since my prepuce was long gone, circumcision was not an option. In order to initiate pre-cut male converts like me into the covenant between the male descendants of Israel and God, Jewish law stipulates a ritual called hatafat dam brit. To execute this sacred task on the day of my conversion, the mohel (ritual circumciser) politely asked me to lower my pants sufficiently provide access and then proceeded to stab my penis with a hypodermic needle, collect a little blood on a piece of gauze, and show it to three witnesses. Surprisingly, this was not my last encounter with a mohel. A few months later, I learned that the Cleveland orthodox community did not consider my conversion to be valid since they did not consider the rabbi who had conducted it to be sufficiently orthodox. I had to do everything including hatafat dam brit once again. Although from God’s perspective it was apparently much more kosher the second time around, everything was basically the same from my perspective, except that the mohel used a scalpel instead of a hypodermic needle. For the record, the scalpel hurt a bit more, though it was nothing a brave and consenting convert couldn’t handle. On July 21, 2012, I thought about circumcision critically for the first time at the Freies Museum in Berlin. A German lady to whom I had just been introduced broached the subject, wanting to know my opinion on whether Jews and Muslims should be allowed to circumcise their young in Germany. When I expressed my belief that they should have this right in name of religious freedom, she promptly informed that the question was not one of religious freedom at all, but rather a question of the rights of the child, rights, which she insisted, were violated by those who circumcised unconsenting children. My view, she asserted, was prejudiced by growing up in a country which this barbaric practice is commonplace. Troubled by these unexpected remarks, I spent the next several days reading about the debate over the legality of circumcision that was raging in Germany and trying to formulate my own opinion. Eventually, I realized that I had found a thesis topic. I went into the research with an open mind. All I knew for sure was that I was very confused. Over time, however, I developed a strongly oppositional opinion on circumcision. This opinion certainly comes through in my analyses. I sincerely attempt to argue fairly throughout the work, avoiding unnecessarily hyperbolic claims and honestly engaging with opposing views where appropriate, but I am not a disinterested observer and I make no claim to objectivity. Garber understands the essential point: that circumcision is not favoured because the medical evidence supports it, but because cultural commitment to or faith in circumcision generates the medical evidence that seems to provide a justification for it. Consequently, as one reason for circumcision loses its force (prevention of masturbation, epilepsy or hip joint disease), others take their place. He also understands that it is only because circumcision is performed on the most culturally, physically and sexually significant site of the male body – his penis – that it escapes the normal rules of surgery, evidence-based medicine and bioethical principles. As he explains with a telling thought experiment in chapter 2: Michael Katz writes with regard to the medical justifications for male circumcision that “There is no parallel in other prophylactic measures, such as immunization. No other prophylactic measure attempts to achieve a benefit by abrogating a natural process.” The point is that even if the prophylactic claims are true, they come at too high of a price. He also points out that, over time, the medical justifications for circumcision have changed while the recommendation has remained the same. As each new set of claims is discredited, another pops up to replace them. The medical community attempts, time and time again, to retroactively provide justifications for a ritual that is already culturally sanctioned. Were it not already culturally sanctioned, the medical arguments would not be accepted or, perhaps, put forth at all. The problem is not that it is inconceivable that a prophylactic effect could arise from the amputation of a functional body part. Rather, the problem is precisely that, in the absence of prejudicial cultural influence, the possibility would never be explored for obvious ethical reasons. A hypothetical example will help demonstrate this point. A freethinking American biologist contemplates America’s tragic obesity epidemic. After several minutes of deep reflection, he comes up with an idea. In order to prevent future generations of Americans from becoming grossly overweight,infants will be subjected to a relatively minor surgical procedure that inhibits their capacity for olfaction. Mind you, it will not eliminate their capacity for olfaction altogether. It will just reduce it enough so that the experience of flavor is moderated to a level that is more nutritionally adaptive in the context of today’s superabundance in the availability of calorically rich foods. If one were to conduct trials, one would likely be able to demonstrate that those who had undergone the procedure are significantly less likely to develop obesity and all of the medical conditions that are associated with it. Furthermore, after a few decades, one might be able to establish rigorous procedural standards that ensure that operative complications (like accidentally eliminating olfaction altogether) are reduced to nearly negligible levels. The essential point is that, even in light of these empirical demonstrations and technical advances, the practice would be rejected as intrinsically and essentially harmful. A reasonable critic would surely say, “If you are concerned about your child’s weight, then teach him about proper nutrition and stock your kitchen with produce rather than junk food. Don’t resort to damaging his sense of smell. That’s unethical!” If an American is truly concerned about his or her son getting HIV, the appropriate course of action would be to give him condoms and explain how using them consistently nearly eliminates the possibility of sexual transmission of HIV and to explain the dangers of intravenous drug use. Whether or not circumcision effectively reduces rates of HIV transmission or any other ailment, it should not be considered as a routine prophylactic measure because it is inherently harmful. Shemuel Toviah Garber. The Circular Cut: Problematizing the Longevity of Civilization’s Most Aggressively Defended Amputation. Thesis submitted to the faculty of Wesleyan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors from the College of Letters and with Departmental Honors in Philosophy. Middletown, Connecticut: April 2013. <h2>The façade of inevitability: The AAP’s rhetorical strategies unmasked</h2> In “The facade of inevitability”, an MA thesis from Iowa State University, Chris Jones takes a cool and highly critical look at the policy statement on circumcision issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics in August 2012. He presents a provocative argument that, contrary to the AAP’s claims, it is not an objective scientific assessment, but an exercise in rhetoric and persuasion. While the AAP claims it is merely providing information to assist parents to make a decision, in reality the policy is nudging them, not so subtly, in making a decision in favour of circumcision. The significance of Jones’ thesis is wider than the specifics of his argument, for he is really declaring that the emperor has no clothes. The AAP likes to regard itself as the pre-eminent world authority on all matters relating to the health of children; according to this unimpressed graduate student, it is nothing more than a professional interest group with an ideological axe to grind. Jones writes in the introduction: The scientific issue I will focus on in this thesis is infant male circumcision (IMC) in the United States. A series of clinical trials conducted in sub-Saharan Africa (Kenya and South Africa) between 2003 and 2006 indicate that circumcision of males may prevent the transmission of HIV by as much as 60%. While the research was conducted on adult males in a region where an estimated 68% of the 34 million people living with HIV reside and where the infection rate among adults is a staggering 5% (AVERT), the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has relied heavily on this research to justify their support of infant male circumcision (IMC) in the United States where less than 4% of the world’s HIV cases occur and where only an estimated .4% of the population are infected with HIV (CDC). The AAP indicates that recent research shows that the medical benefits of IMC outweigh the risks and that this justifies “access to this procedure for families who choose it” (756). What remains unclear is how this HIV research is used and applied to a vastly different context as a form of argument. The report focuses heavily on the ability of the family to make choices for their infant, but constructs a narrative of risk – primarily the risk of contracting HIV that makes the decision not to circumcise medically negligent. The report also displays an unresolved tension between the right of the family to make such a decision and the right of the child to make that decision once they reach the age of consent. My goal in this research is not to suggest that circumcision is right or wrong, only to examine how the technical report functions as a rhetorical artifact. What is particularly interesting about this document is that on a surface level it seems to merely suggest that parents have an opportunity to choose whether or not to have their children undergo the procedure, but a closer analysis reveals that the report is really arguing that circumcision is a better option. Because the primary audience of the report is the medical community (physicians, pediatricians, nurses, etc.), it is important to note that the technical report on male circumcision is available for free on the AAP’s website and was published both online and in the September 2012 issue of their journal. Given the immediacy and intensity of news coverage the policy statement received, it is reasonable to assume that a number of people viewing the report were parents or expecting parents. For this reason, the report is treated as having a pluralistic audience. A quick scan of articles touting the medical benefits of IMC or blasting the credibility of these claims will reveal a host of prevalent issues, and a review of commentary on such articles indicates just how intense this debate can be. The discourse that envelops the IMC issue has existed in the public sphere for a number of years, but more than ever medical research is being viewed by a public that may or may not be equipped to interpret it. In addition, this particular scientific discussion concerns both religious and cultural practice. Still, medical organizations like the AAP have a vested interest in presenting recommendations based on their evaluation of current research. The AAP is an organization “dedicated to the health of all children” (AAP History). Founded in the 1930’s by a cohort of medical professionals, the goal of the organization was to foster relationships within the medical community and between the medical community and other organizations. Their current mission is to “attain optimal physical, mental, and social health and well-being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults” (AAP Facts). From a practical standpoint, the AAP helps to establish standards for preventative care of children such as immunization and diet. While the percentage of circumcised infant males in the United States has been declining in recent years (Rabin), there remains a need to regularize and medicalize the procedure due to the inconsistencies with how, when, and where the procedure is performed. From a number of viewpoints – human rights, religious rights, cultural ideology, socioeconomic, medical, etc. – infant male circumcision occupies a complex discursive web. In this paper I argue that the AAP maintains that the choice to circumcise should be left to the family of the infant, but they also inhibit this choice by both positioning the physician as the primary decision maker and by constructing a rhetoric of risk in regards to HIV infection. What looks like only a recommendation that circumcision should be an option for parents is really a suggestion that circumcision is a vastly better decision. In general, the AAP and their report (among other things) act to regulate the practice of circumcision and in doing so position those who choose not to circumcise as dissenters. By stating that it is better, from a medical standpoint, to have infant males circumcised, the AAP divides families into those who make good choices and those who do not. In chapter two I use cluster criticism to explore the discursive patterns of the technical report, and use recent theories about agency and kairos in chapter three to see how risk is constructed. In chapter four I use Latour’s model of the circulatory system of scientific facts to help to illuminate aspects of the AAPs 2012 technical report and how the report functions at a more macro level. I conclude that for a true choice to exist, we as a culture must understand and confront the social constraints that make not being circumcised unnatural. Chris Jones. The façade of inevitability: Risk, agency, and the American Academy of Pediatrics’ technical report on male circumcision. A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS. Iowa State University, 2013. <a href="http://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Available as PDf from Iowa State University</a> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Young American scholars turn critical eye on circumcision darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> <h2>The Wroeites, William Chidley and the British Medical Association: Bizarre sex cults in nineteenth century Australia</h2> <h5>Seminar paper given to History Department, Australian National University, Friday 26 March 2004</h5> <h3>Outline and introduction</h3> The Wroeites were an ascetic millennial sect with a penchant for Old Testament rhetoric and Jewish ritual. William Chidley was a lifestyle reformer who thought he had found the key to human happiness on earth: it could be attained by a revolution in the mode of sexual intercourse. The British Medical Association, promising its own millennium in the form of perfect health, represented the mainstream of orthodox and increasingly scientific medical practice. A central plank of this was the proposition that masturbation was a major cause of organic and mental disease in both men and women, and the single most important cause of spermatorrhoea, impotence and inexplicable wasting illnesses â€“ often referred to as debility â€“ in men. What these three nineteenth century cults had in common is that they placed male sexuality, and more specifically the male genitals, at the centre of their world view and action program. Indeed, it was not just the male genitals, but the penis that was their focus, and in the case of the Wroeites and the BMA, a specific part of the penis known to anatomy as the prepuce, more commonly referred to as the foreskin, or forey, as lucky Queenslanders say. I therefore warn you now that the content of my paper is adult in nature. If you do not wish to hear explicit talk about the male genitals and sexual acts, please don't attend. I cannot claim that this is a particularly coherent or polished paper. It consists of a few bits and pieces hewn from the work I have been doing over the past four or five years on male sexuality, and more particularly on changing attitudes to male sexuality and the male genitals in Britain â€“ and the anglophone world more generally â€“ from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. This began as a more limited project to write an account of the rise and fall of routine male circumcision in Australia, from the late nineteenth century to the 1990s, by which time it seemed as though it was going the way of such valued therapies as bleeding, phrenology and frontal lobotomy. To understand the emergence of circumcision in Australia, however, it was necessary to go back to the British home base, and once I got there I found that the key to the whole question lay in the masturbation phobia â€“ a phenomenon which reached its peak in the late nineteenth century, but which had its origins in the late seventeenth, and even before then in Jewish and Christian religious teaching. After that, among other finds, I discovered the importance of syphilis and the purity movement. In this way my intended introduction on the British background grew into a book in its own right which, I hope, is to be published by an American university press some time next year. What these cults further had in common was a tendency to pathologise male sexuality as a major source of physical, mental and moral decay, and in this they were part and parcel of the Victorian construction of sexuality as a nest of problems, very different from the generally positive attitudes which had prevailed in the Georgian age. Indeed, looking at the evolution of medical knowledge of sexuality over three centuries I found a curious pattern. In the libertine eighteenth century, medical authorities were not much concerned with sex, except in relation to venereal disease, but they knew that most men and women desired sexual relations with each other, that such connections were mutually pleasurable and beneficial to the health of mind and body, that normal genitals required no modifications for optimum function and appearance, and that the foreskin specifically was a valuable feature of the male package. In the nineteenth century they knew that many women did not enjoy sex, and some regarded it with revulsion, that men were governed by animal passions, that sexual activity was always risky and "too much" of it positively harmful, that both the male and female genitals were frequently in need of surgical improvement, that the male foreskin was a menace to both health and morals, and that a host of diseases and social problems were directly related to sexuality. For all their moralism, Victorian doctors were obsessed with sex. And not just doctors, as I hope my three exhibits will demonstrate. I would like to thank Dr Chris Forth for encouraging my research and Professor Frank Lewins for inviting me to be a Visiting Fellow in the School of Social Sciences in 2004. <h3>The Wroeites, William Chidley and the British Medical Association</h3> E.P. Thompson has warned us not to condescend to the poor deluded followers of Joanna Southcott, [1] but it is hard to have much sympathy with the most deluded of them all, the self-appointed prophet John Wroe, founder of the Christian Israelites. Southcott offered a fiery brand of millennial preaching and visions of the Last Judgement, and she attracted a large following in the south-west of England in the 1790s and up until her death in 1814. Hers was one of several millenarian movements which attracted the poor and dispossessed of the Industrial Revolution, and their inspiration was the blood and thunder of Old Testament, and thus the rites and practices of the Jews. They readily identified themselves with the children of Israel, oppressed by the ungodly, but sustained by divine promises of eventual victory and bloody revenge against their modernising enemies, certainly involving a great deal of smiting. John Wroe (1782-1863) was one of Southcott's followers, and after her death he set himself up as a prophet in whom the Judaizing tendencies already apparent were greatly intensified. He began by actually trying to convert to Judaism, but decided to establish his own religion after being rebuffed by the Liverpool synagogue. His own creed was an ascetic regime based on Mosaic Law, including a ban on pork, shellfish, alcohol and tobacco, elaborate rules about dress, the requirement to wear a beard, Sabbath observance and the adoption of male circumcision. Wroe himself was publicly circumcised in 1824, and later that year he circumcised a young convert. Like many evangelists in our own day, he had some trouble with sexual temptation, and he was charged with an offence against a 12-year old servant girl, though acquitted. Later his own followers set up an inquiry into his "indecencies" with three young women of the congregation. It does not seem to take long for an adult who has chosen a bodily alteration like circumcision for himself to try to force it on others, and in 1824 one of Wroe's followers was charged with manslaughter after a boy whom he had circumcised in Bedford died from the wound. Another convert was James Smith (1801-57), known as Shepherd Smith, who wrote an autobiographical account of the sect in which he wrote of himself as follows: He was now a Jew or Israelite bodily and spiritually. ... He kept the law of Moses as faithfully as any modern Jew. He abandoned the use of pork ... or fish without scales. He abandoned even the occasional use of spirits, tobacco or snuff, and adopted all the cleanly, chaste, and orderly habits which were enjoined. [2] The last reference is of particularly interest, suggesting that the adoption of a Jewish lifestyle was another route to the work-focused sobriety of the Protestant ethic: cleanliness, chastity and orderly habits were exactly the values being enjoined on the Victorian middle class at that time, by doctors and clergy alike. Wroeism flourished in the new industrial towns of Yorkshire in the 1820s and 30s, though it is not clear whether all adherents underwent circumcision, and from there emigrants took the new creed to the Australian colonies. The Wroeites did not attract a strong following in the Antipodes, and what I know of them comes from a pamphlet by a regretful convert, with the uncompromising title, The abominations of the Wroeites (or Christian Israelites) fully and completely exposed, published in Melbourne in 1863. [3] The author, Allen Stewart, was an apprentice carpenter who reports that on his Sunday rambles he met "some of Wroe's preachers, listened to their sermons and read their tracts, which gradually worked upon my mind, till I really thought I had met with the best and purest people on earth, who could assuredly show me the way to heaven." To join their society Stewart had to wrote out a full confession of his sins, and then to undergo what he described as "the unpleasant rite of circumcision", in which ordeal he was told that he would be "divinely supported". In the event it did not turn out to be the uplifting spiritual experience he had been led to believe: "I found it to be a terrible operation, which cost me three weeks of agony before I recovered from it". Stewart also reported that the Wroeities practised a strange penitential rite in which the man leaned over a table and confessed his sins, while a woman massaged his buttocks and "private parts". One ex-convert reported to John Milton MD (presumably John Laws Milton, a leading authority on spermatorrhoea) that she "began to manipulate his private parts till he was afraid he would not be able to contain his ... [sic]". This did not happen to Stewart himself, and the ritual seems oddly at variance with the ascetic trend of the cult; it may be that he was retailing hostile gossip rather than giving an accurate description of its practices. Calling himself a fool and madman to get involved with the sect, Stewart concluded with a warning to parents: Remember that your children ... may be deluded by these people, that the atrocities which I have witnessed may be practised upon them â€“ then happy will they be if ... they are rescued ... even [if it is] with a shattered constitution, a shaken mind and life-long remorse. I wonder here whether Stewart was referring mainly to circumcision, or whether it was to the apocryphal masturbatory rite, since the consequences he enumerates â€“ shaken mind, shattered constitution and life-long regret â€“ are exactly the results which, according to nineteenth century doctors, flowed inevitably from that shameful indulgence. Of course, the life-long remorse could just as easily refer to his allowing the amputation of his foreskin. William Chidley I also wonder whether my next exhibit, William Chidley, might have heard a Wroeite sermon in his youth, since in his autobiography he recalls an itinerant preacher asserting that the snake in the Garden of Eden was really an erect penis. It sounds like the kind of comparison an adherent of the cult might have made, and the thought leads me into the program of Australia's best known sex reformer and most famous eccentric. Of all the claims made by Victorian specialists in male sexual problems, the one that seems most improbable to us is that men were troubled by erections. That some Victorians did find their erections a source of anxiety rather than pride, and actually sought means to discourage them, as though they were a malfunction like toothache, is a tribute to the doctors' success in convincing the public that normal male sexuality was a chronic disease. An extreme case was William Chidley (1860-1916), whose sad life might be used to illustrate many morals, including Pope's warning that a little learning is a dangerous thing. After reading a pamphlet on the dangers of masturbation as a teenager he became convinced that all his subsequent health and personal problems were the result of self-abuse. When he grew up he learned from William Acton and other standard works on sexual physiology that excessive intercourse could have the same effect, and he embarked on a vigorous personal crusade to practise continence and encourage it in others. Eventually he became convinced that erections themselves were the problem and wrote pamphlets in which he advocated what he called "natural coition" â€“ that is, with a flaccid penis which was sucked by vacuum force into the vagina. Attempting to sell these ideas in the streets of Sydney between 1912 and 1915 he was gaoled repeatedly for indecency and eventually confined in a mental hospital. Chidley's views were only a slight extension and distortion of the medical mainstream, and his advocacy of sexual restraint â€“ he would permit sexual intercourse only for a couple of months each year, during Spring â€“ were very much in tune with both medical and theological orthodoxy. But he caused offence by his social origins (an itinerant labourer), by talking about sex explicitly in public, by intruding into a domain that doctors considered their own, and by wearing a toga-like tunic which magistrates judged obscene. Chidley has been the subject of some interesting research, but its focus has been the reception of his ideas and his persecution by the authorities, rather than the sources and content of his teachings. [4] The assumption has been that if he was gaoled by the establishment he must have been some sort of progressive or radical, but he invites reinterpretation as an extreme puritan rather than a libertarian, and as an impressionable autodidact who took the teachings of Acton and others all too seriously. [5] Chidley's theories went through three stages of development. First he thought that self-abuse would produce the dire effects predicted in a pamphlet on the harm of masturbation issued by "a medical man in Melbourne" which he read when he was a teenager. This offered the usual line-up of physical and mental ills, including "shattered nerves, madness etc", as Chidley recalled in his autobiography. [6] The pamphlet did not stop him from masturbating, though it naturally caused intense anxiety and guilt which carried over into his later sexual affairs. The second stage was when he went to the public library to learn more about sex and found that there were books on the subject of excessive coition, in one of which he read the following: "There is little or no difference between the results of excessive coition and those of self-abuse". [7] Chidley did not identify the precise source of this quotation, but it could be from any one of many works on sexual physiology published during the nineteenth century. From this point Chidley regarded all health problems, diseases and the effects of ageing itself as caused by excessive indulgence in sexual intercourse, and he claimed to find that by practising restraint his own health and appearance improved markedly. He wrote in his later pamphlets [8] that the shock of coition caused bodily degeneration and Heart disease, paralysis, epilepsy, diabetes, rheumatism, neuralgia, asthma, consumption, madness and â€“ directly or indirectly â€“ all diseases and deformity. And cancer I am convinced. Only men and women who have accumulated the shocks of coition for twenty or thirty years â€“ until they are one mass of perverted functions â€“ have cancer. I am sure from over twenty years close observation, and for the reason mentioned by Acton, i.e. that all these improve on abstinence and get worse on indulgence. [9] Before we laugh at Chidley's naivety, we should remember that doctors as prominent as Simon-Andre Tissot, Claude-Francois Lallemand, Acton and the Australian James Beaney, on the basis of their own lengthy clinical experience and medical expertise, confidently attributed these same ailments to masturbation. During this phase of his life Chidley eagerly sought medical knowledge and studied many standard works on human sexuality, [10] including Acton's Functions and disorders of the reproductive organs, William Carpenter's Principles of physiology, and texts by E.A. Schafer and Michael Foster. [11] From Carpenter and Acton he learnt that "The high degree of nervous excitement which the act of coition involves produces a depression of spirits to a corresponding amount, and the too frequent repetition of it is productive of consequences very injurious to the general health". [12] From Schafer's and Foster's books Chidley learned that protoplasm contracts in response to shock, a principle which he interpreted as authorising his view that the shock of intercourse caused the brain to shrink and facial features to contract. As time went by and shocks accumulated lesions would appear in the brain itself, in the blood and lymph, and in all glands and secretions. The normal waste and repair would become perverted, and either fat or consumption ensue. That is why people get fat or thin after marriage. ... And that is why people get bald and wrinkled and blind and deaf and pigeon-toed and epileptic and criminal and finally mad. [13] Like many discoverers of hidden truths, Chidley believed he had found the master-key to all illness. In the third stage of his theory Chidley decided that the problem was not too much sex but erection itself. In this development he relied heavily on Acton, whom he praised for identifying the harmful results of sexual indulgence and criticised for not taking his insights far enough. [14] Dr Acton's book is full of the evils accruing to our present sexual coition", he wrote. "Acton was "surprised at the improvement in his patients ... when they abstained from coition. ... Had he followed that up he would have made my discovery". [15] Chidley was most interested in Acton's discussion of a major issue in nineteenth century sexual medicine: which was the key factor in the harm of sexual activity? Was it the shock of orgasm to the brain and nervous system, as predicted by the dominant nerve force theory of disease? Or was it the loss of semen from the system, as maintained by the fading but still influential humoral or Galenic paradigm? Acton inclined to the former view, thus giving Chidley the lead he needed to transform shock of orgasm into shock of coition, caused by the erect penis. It was perhaps only a small slide from Acton's shock of orgasm (a nervous spasm affecting the male more severely than the female) to Chidley's shock of coition (a vaguely defined event affecting both male and female equally), but Chidley was a trifle dishonest in this particular borrowing from and extension of current sexual physiology. He included two long passages from Functions and disorders, one dealing with debility arising from marital excess, the other with the shock of orgasm/loss of semen problem mentioned above as evidence for his argument. But from both these quotations he omitted crucial phrases which indicate Acton's real concern: the disease of spermatorrhoea, or loss of semen, the cure of which was his specialism. Statements that ill-health was caused by seminal loss were no use to an innovator who wanted to show that the problem went right back to erection in the first place, so the offending and unhelpful text was quietly suppressed. [16] There were two reasons why Chidley rejected Acton's theory that the problem was mere excess. First, there was his failure to define excessive when discussing the harm of excessive intercourse (except retrospectively, after illness had ensued). Secondly there was Chidley's own romantic belief that something as natural as intercourse could not be indulged in to excess, with its implication that there must therefore be something wrong with the method. [17] This consideration might have led him in a libertarian direction, to question the very doctrine that sexual activity was debilitating, but his prior and unshakeable conviction that all illness was caused in this manner sent him further in the other direction. There is a dreamlike quality to Chidley's reasoning in which the ideas he has picked up from his wide reading reappear in grotesque form. Although Chidley was condemned for preaching immorality, he was actually advocating a degree of puritanical restraint even more severe than Acton and all the other moralists who insisted that sex was permissible only for reproduction. He went further to argue that erections themselves were permissible only for reproductive purposes, and that tumescent manifestations in any other circumstances were wrong. Having decided that erections were the root of all evil he was such a sound "Victorian" that he needed to argue that they were unattractive and unnatural as well, and accordingly asserted that the erect penis was "an ugly thing" of which "we are all ashamed" [18] and "a weakness, the same as a stiff neck or knee". [19] It was "an inherited weakness" or lesion, arising from loss of nerve and muscle tone. That erections were also unnatural was proved by the "fact" that "babies and boys have erections", even though they "serve no purpose with boys" and, on the contrary, "may often ruin the boy's life". [20] Conventional medical wisdom was that masturbation ruined a boy's life, so Chidley was only going a little further in blaming the erection which led to the act. Indeed, these comments are remarkably close to the view of Lallemand, who deplored erections before puberty as an unhealthy sign of sexual precocity, likely to give rise to predictable bad habits. [21] Although he had not read Lallemand, Chidley imbibed his suspicion of juvenile penile restlessness through Acton, whose baleful comments on priapism and satyriasis he triumphantly quoted in his pamphlet on erection. He was also impressed by Acton's remark that the principal cause of erection was "nervous irritation" â€“ further evidence of the evil inherent in our mode of coition. [22] Commentators on Chidley have claimed that his views on sexual intercourse were really an attempt to moderate male sexual aggressiveness and "phallocentrism" and thus to increase female pleasure. [23] He did appeal to some "purity feminists", such as Rose Scott and Marion Piddington, who believed that the "double standard" on sexual morality should be evened up by imposing the rule of extra-marital chastity on everybody, but as far as the sexual act was concerned, Chidley took a stricter line than Acton. He had stated that it should be approached cautiously by the strong and be got over with quickly â€“ "some few minutes" only; [24] for Chidley, the only purpose of an erection was to facilitate a rapid ejaculation with a view to impregnation. Going one better than his mentors yet again, he wrote: "there is no reason given why the penis should become erect and then wait. On the contrary, when the erection has reached its full, ejaculation should follow on immediately". [25] The disappointing implications of this scenario for female pleasure hardly need to be stressed. That Chidley was no libertarian is further indicated by his desire to ban alcohol, tobacco and opium, [26] and by the list of perversions he condemned in the course of defending his theory of the unnatural erection. [27] In condemning juvenile and adolescent sex, masturbation, homosexuality, wet dreams and naughty pictures, Chidley was as extreme a Victorian wowser as you could hope to meet. He even advocated the use of chastity devices: Dr Andrew Davidson (a Sydney practitioner to whom he sought to explain his views) reported that he recommended "putting a wire cover over the testicles and penis in order to stop erection". [28] As he told the court during the appeal against his committal for insanity, his aim was not to inflame lust (as the police claimed), but the opposite: "my book lays the axe to the root of all lust". [29] It is important to appreciate how close Chidley was to the medical mainstream, and particularly to the theories of nervous disease then current. Even the doctors who attested his insanity were forced, under questioning, to agree with many of his points. The Chief Government Medical Office (who had certified him) conceded that "sexual excess" was a reality, that it had harmful effects and "a very important bearing on the individual and society", and that it could be a factor in the genesis of general paralysis of the insane. [30] Dr J.M. Creed agreed that intercourse could damage the nervous system because orgasm caused "a brainstorm" and "nervous shocks in high degree"; he added that "nerve disturbance consequent upon coitus might lead to heart trouble". [31] The superintendent of the Hospital for the Insane, at Kenmore, [32] insisted that Chidley was mad, ridiculed the idea that coition caused shocks to the brain, but agreed that masturbation was a "contributory cause" of insanity, and admitted that he adopted methods to prevent it among inmates "when necessary". [33] Dr George Thompson, a Sydney GP recently arrived from England, went so far as to agree that coition did cause nervous shocks which could lead to exhaustion in the "nervous centres"; that erections were sometimes pathological; and that cancer was caused by irritation â€“ and therefore that violent intercourse provoking irritation in the vagina could indeed give rise to it. [34] If Chidley was mad, it was a very fine line that divided him from the medical professionals who had certified him. Chidley's case exemplifies the truth of the adage that there's nothing worse than a reformed smoker/drinker/gambler etc. After a lifetime of exuberant indulgence in sex, alcohol and meat (interrupted, it is true, by spasms of guilt) he reached fifty and suddenly decided it had all been a mistake. He then developed an elaborate system of self-regulation aimed at eliminating these evils from his life, and he turned to vegetarianism, temperance and chastity â€“ much to the bewilderment and displeasure of his de facto wife, Ada, who had enjoyed his studly qualities. [35] So far it was a personal theory. But after Ada's death (from kidney failure arising from alcoholism, according to the hospital, though Chidley blamed their sex life) he began to manifest a syndrome identified by Alan Hunt in Governing morals: that those who seek moral regulation of themselves soon want to reform everybody else. [36] He thrashed his adoptive son (Ada's son Donald, then a boy of about twelve) for masturbating and scolded him harshly even for getting erections. [37] His subsequent career as pamphleteer and public speaker was the result of such an obsession, and his treatment of children under his care offers a disturbing glimpse of how he would have liked to order other people's lives. All Victorian doctors condemned sexual excess, but Chidley went one further to blame the ills of humankind on penile tumescence and to assert that the answer to the world's problems lay in its elimination from daily life. In this he was more ambitious than even Big Brother and the Anti-Sex League in Nineteen eighty-four, which aimed merely to abolish the orgasm. Just before he died Chidley wrote that he had endured an unhappy life, but that he knew that all his misery came "from that 'erection' in boys and men". Perhaps he showed greater insight when he added: "Sometimes I think books have been the curse of my life." [38] Donald might well have thought that they had been the curse of his life. Quackery and orthodoxy It is perhaps surprising that Chidley did not cotton on to the strengthening identification of the foreskin as the major risk factor for masturbation, spermatorrhoea, and other sexual problems. As in Britain and the US, the phobia against masturbation was the main driving force behind the introduction of widespread circumcision in Australia at end of the nineteenth century. David Walker has examined the fears surrounding seminal loss and their connection with conceptions of manhood and national development in three important articles [39], but there are several areas in which his studies need to be extended. As Walker points out, nineteenth century medical orthodoxy held that any seminal loss weakened the system, but that masturbation was especially dangerous, partly because it was so easy to do and partly because it was indulged in mainly by the young, who needed all their energies for proper growth and development. [40] He did not, however, pick up the debate over the role of the shock of orgasm, and the whole question of nervous irritation, in this process, and was thus not alert to why Victorian doctors were so keen to target the foreskin. In concentrating on irregular medical practitioners who offered various quack cures for seminal loss and other "private diseases", moreover, Walker leaves the impression that concern with masturbation was a fringe preoccupation and that orthodox practitioners (those trained in medical schools and usually members of the British Medical Association) were less worried by the problem. This is far from the truth: the danger of masturbation was an unquestioned axiom of the regular medical profession, and the quacks were only trying to take advantage of the fears already generated by its own advice and propaganda. Nor is it possible to draw a hard and fast line between the regular doctors and the quacks; the former exhibited plenty of evidence of ignorant faddism and eccentricity, while the latter frequently offered more humane and less damaging treatments. Ineffective they might have been, but when you are dealing with imaginary diseases it is to the advantage of the patient if the cure is not too heroic. I shall deal with each of these points in turn. The views of the quacks were little different from those of the mainstream medical profession, though they did tend to be cast in more lurid language. Two of Sydney's most prominent specialists in the "nervous and private diseases" of males, Drs Freeman and Wallace, referred to masturbation as a "pernicious habit" which caused a whole brood of diseases, a "disgusting subject", a practice alarmingly widespread among the young, and a problem which must be overcome; their own cures (not detailed in the publicity) were always efficacious in this respect. [41] Even more colourful language was employed by another practitioner, Dr W.B. Towle, who mixed moral and scientific condemnation in a manner typical of the period: The general effects of seminal weakness, nocturnal and diurnal emissions, impotence and sterility, caused by self-abuse in early life, or excessive indulgence in later years, if not relieved by appropriate and thorough treatment, are most deplorable. This malady is one of the most widespread and destructive experienced by man. Few, except physicians, have any conception of the prevalence of self-abuse, or of its disastrous effects on both mind and body. This habit, according to the experience of the most renowned medical men, degrades man, poisons the happiness of his best days and ravages society. ... Many maniacs owe their loss of reason to no other cause. In the tabulated reports of every lunatic asylum are a great number of cases in which the cause of insanity is set down as "masturbation". [42] Given their generally more hellish scenarios, you might think that the quacks would be more enthusiastic about the heroic approach to male sexual problems, and masturbation specifically, than the regular doctors. In fact, the reverse is true: it was the mainstream professionals who favoured modern scientific methods of treatment, such as mechanical restraint, infibulation of the foreskin, cauterisation of the urethra and circumcision. The remedies proposed by the quacks were altogether gentler and less punitive. Freeman and Wallace did not recommend circumcision for any genital complaint and discouraged it even in cases of phimosis; as they reassured nervous clients: "Slitting the foreskin or circumcision is frequently adopted by some surgeons, but we never resort to such measures unless ... absolutely necessary". [43] They made their own attack on quacks who offered fake cures, especially cauterisation of the urethra with caustic substances such as silver nitrate, a treatment recommended by Acton and widely practised by orthodox professionals. [44] Freeman and Wallace were vague about their own methods, but not Dr Towle: he specialised in electro-therapy, offering a range of electrical appliances designed to cure female complaints, liver and kidney problems, joint disease, nervous debility and impotence. The "Hercules Life Renewer" could even treat self-abuse successfully, though in cases where spermatorrhoea was also present, supplementary remedies would be required. [45] There is not a word here about surgical intervention. Indeed, if published testimonials from successfully treated patients may be believed, there is evidence that some men resorted to quacks precisely to avoid the surgical remedies proposed by regular physicians. Towle quotes the example of a young man suffering from paraphimosis: A surgeon had told him he would have to undergo an operation; that the prepuce would have to be cut through. Shrinking from this prospect he decided to consult me. I administered at one some medicine, the effect of which was to relax the constricted muscles ... [and] the patient awoke to find himself quite well. He wrote saying: "I am doubly grateful to you for having not only cured me so easily, but for having saved me from having to undergo a surgical operation, which would have been very painful, and would have left its mark upon me all my days". [46] Given this sort of resistance to the operation, it is not surprising that the circumcision lobby learned to target its propaganda at parents rather than the subjects of the procedure. As David Gollaher has commented, the benefits of circumcision were to be enjoyed only by those who were too young to object. For all the embarrassment they caused the regulars, it is thus not so easy to draw a firm line between the quacks and the medical profession proper. The practitioner who diagnosed a case of tinnitus as stemming from masturbation and who treated it by means of electric shocks and a long course of urethral dilation was not a quack, but Dr W.F. Quaife BA, MB etc, who described his cure in the journal of the Australian branch of the British Medical Association. [47] Indeed, the campaign against quackery was part of a wider effort on the part of doctors to establish their own professional standing and assert a monopoly over the management of bodily (and some mental) functions. The mainstream doctors had been vying with the irregular practitioners since at least the 1860s, and one of the main issues on which the struggle was fought was their competence to provide better treatment for "nervous and private diseases". Acton had taken numerous swipes at the quacks, and another significant writer on spermatorrhoea, F.B. Courtenay, had fired a broadside called Revelations of quacks and quackery (1860s) in which he emerged as a crusader against the irregulars, and particularly against their claims to cure spermatorrhoeic and related diseases. In his own work on that subject he expressed the usual views on masturbation but was fairly relaxed about involuntary nocturnal emissions and critical of the cauterisation treatment advocated by Acton and others. He attacked the quacks and deplored the reluctance of the medical profession to take spermatorrhoea seriously, thus driving men into their hands. [48] He was one of the influential English writers whose ideas James Beaney had sought to popularise in Australia back in the 1870s. Beaney's treatise on Spermatorrhoea was explicitly part of a campaign to wrest the treatment of these diseases away from the quacks and vest it with qualified doctors; as he writes in the Preface, it was "designed to lead those who are afflicted by them to abandon the pretentious quacks" and turn to "legitimate and honourable practitioners" like himself. [49] Like Courtenay, he was critical of his profession for its "culpable neglect of one of the most important and serious ... diseases to which mankind is subject", thereby driving "a large section of the community ... into the hands of the vilest imposters". By refusing to take the disease seriously and treat it like any other medical complaint, the profession was in fact responsible for sending "thousands of wretched sufferers ... into imbecility and the madhouse and even the grave". Rejecting the prudish and old fashioned view that medical science was too delicate to be concerned with the genitals, Beaney asserts its claim to management of the whole body: "Are not the functions of the surgeon ... to embrace all the maladies to which the body is liable?", including those afflicting the genitals. His audience here is twofold: he wants to convince the public that victims of spermatorrhoea should seek the help of professionals like him, not patronise the irregulars; but he also wants to persuade his conservative colleagues that they should accept spermatorrhoea as a real and serious disease which demanded their professional attention. Quoting from Copland's Dictionary of practical medicine and other English authorities, Beaney regretted that too few doctors took the problem seriously, thus relinquishing it to the "unqualified empiric", but he was pleased to note that this state of affairs was changing, and that doctors were making amends for their neglect. The nub of the case was that spermatorrhoea was too grave and complex a disease to be treated by anybody except the experts: These several phases of spermatorrhoea require special treatment and suggest the folly of trusting their management to the pretentious charlatans and ignorant quacks who parade their nostrums in the daily journals. The disorder ... is too serious in its character and consequences to be carelessly dealt with. ... the question ... calls forth the highest faculties of the surgeon or physician, and taxes the powers of his art often to their limit (1870, p. 103). Yet the sad fact is that there was very little that even the most conscientious physicians could do about these diseases that would distinguish them sharply from the quacks they so bitterly despised. Their treatments for various forms of spermatorrhoea consisted largely of bathing, exercise, diets and "medicines" like potassium, phosphorous and strychnine; their rivals offered much the same regimen, including the application of electricity. Beaney derided them for making use of an "Electro-Galvanic Vital restorer", apparently forgetting that he himself was an exponent of galvanism and Faradization. [50] There was not much in any of this to grab the attention of the public and persuade it to abandon the irregulars; something dramatic was needed, something that only the medical profession proper could offer, some sort of magic bullet. The years 1881â€“1914 were a crucial period in the emergence of the modern medical profession in Australia. A five-year degree had been introduced at Melbourne University in the 1860s, and Sydney followed suit in 1883; the New South Wales branch of the British Medical Association was established in 1881. The emergence of the profession was largely a process of differentiation; as Milton Lewis and Roy Macleod have shown, doctors were struggling on two fronts: against chemists, druggists and "quacks" for control over health care; and against the friendly societies over conditions of work and fees. [51] Doctors had sought since the 1860s to get legislation which would define and secure their position. Their efforts were opposed as an attempt to gain sectional privilege and knocked back several times, but in 1900 the NSW parliament passed the Medical Practitioners Act, which made it an offence for anybody without recognised qualifications to use a medical title and empowered the Medical Board to debar practitioners on a range of grounds. This victory recognised the new prestige of scientific medicine: as Lewis and Macleod comment, "the orthodox practitioners finally won legislative endorsement because they had established a cultural authority superior to that accorded 'alternative' practitioners", [52] though it might be more precise to say that this legislative sanction created the very categories of "orthodox" and "alternative": before then it had been pretty much a free-for-all. Apart from beating the quacks in the lobbying game, however, it is hard to see what medical achievements underlay the doctors' triumph, though the promise of the new germ theory of disease may have been part of it: in 1899 the Sydney Morning Herald looked forward to the conquest of cancer and even gout. [53] As Herbert Moran's memoirs make clear, however, the moral and even confessional role of the doctor increased along with the growth of his scientific status, [54] and the new scientific spirit did not lead to any immediate questioning of the links which had been drawn between masturbation, immorality and disease. Richard Arthur The case of one of Chidley's respectable defenders, Dr Richard Arthur (1865â€“1932), is instructive. Born in England and educated in Scotland, he settled in Sydney in 1891 and became director of a number of major city hospitals. He lived and practised in Mosman and was an independent member of the NSW state parliament for various north shore electorates from 1904 to 1932 and briefly Minister for Health in the Bavin government in 1927. [55] He inveighed against the deceitful machinations of the quacks, yet he was himself a fervent purity campaigner who wrote numerous pamphlets for the Australasian White Cross League on the necessity of youthful continence; he was a keen practitioner of hypnotism and an advocate of vegetarian diets; he warned boys against the dangers of self-abuse and advised parents to circumcise their sons as a preventive measure. It was only the last point which distinguished him from Freeman et al. Arthur agreed with the quacks that masturbation led to severe physical and mental illness: The seed is a very valuable substance, and if it is drained away continually, all the strength and vigour leave the body. The boy or man who practises this vice becomes stunted in growth and enfeebled in mind. he becomes unfit for games and athletics of any kind, and he is not able to study or devote his attention to any object. ... He may so lower his health that he falls an easy victim to that terrible malady, consumption, or he becomes subject to epileptic fits, or, worst of all, he may so injure his brain that he develops insanity in one or other of its dreadful forms. [56] He did not mention circumcision in pamphlets directed at boys, but in one addressed to adults he advised parents to watch carefully for signs of self-abuse and to consult a doctor immediately if a child displayed "any tendency to objectionable habits". In accordance with the medical wisdom of the day, he added that "this vice in the young is sometimes brought about by the existence of some local irritation ... [and] the operation of circumcision is needed". [57] Arthur was a leading light in the Australasian White Cross League, itself an affiliate of the English organisation of the same name and a direct descendant of the groups that waged the English purity campaign of the 1880s which, among other achievements, pressured parliament to raise the age of consent, restrict the circulation of pornography, ban nude bathing and criminalize mutual masturbation among males. [58] In this capacity Arthur urged moral purity in the young and the strict avoidance of sexual activity before marriage. It was this obsession which led him into disagreement with the quacks, whom he criticised for scaring boys with the claim that even involuntary seminal emissions (such as wet dreams) were harmful and in need of special treatment. He reassured them that "in most cases this emission is not unnatural. It is merely a sort of overflow of the semen, and if it do not occur oftener than once in ten days or a fortnight, there need be no cause for anxiety". If, however, they are frequent or are followed by "languor and depression", the sufferer should "seek the advice of some respectable doctor, who will probably soon cure the condition". [59] Arthur's qualified and reluctant acceptance of nocturnal emissions was a consequence of his insistence on chastity; if adolescents and young men renounced masturbation and sexual intercourse, their pent-up energies would have to find release somewhere, and wet dreams were less harmful than "artificial" stimulation. Arthur appears to have held a pretty low estimate of the average adolescent sex drive: to the modern mind, a teenager needing no more sex than one wet dream a fortnight would be a sorry specimen indeed. The more hot-blooded Philip Muskett was willing to allow boys two wet dreams a week before apprehension need be felt . [60] In summary, then, it was not the quacks like Freeman and Towle who offered circumcision as a cure for masturbation and other male complaints. They offered the medical stock-in-trade of Dr Beaney and his colleagues from the previous generation â€“ bathing regimes, proprietary medicines, electrical devices, special diets etc â€“ but they were reluctant to perform surgical procedures and were losing the right to perform them. It was the university-trained and properly accredited medical practitioners who urged circumcision and other surgical interventions as effective, scientific treatments which embodied the latest advances in modern medical understanding and which they alone could provide, in opposition to and in competition with the fringe practitioners. Some patients might have resorted to quacks expressly to avoid the harsh remedies proposed by the regular physicians. In this context it is possible to see the doctor's campaign against quackery as part of a battle for professional turf, indeed, as part of the struggle to establish their own professional identity, and the circumcision cure as one of the weapons in their armoury. REFERENCES 1. E.P. Thompson, The making of the English working class (Pelican 1968), 13 2. J.F.C. Harrison, The second coming: Popular millenarianism 1780-1850 (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1979), 144. For the Southcottians and Wroeites generally see Chap 5, esp. 138-52, and Thompson, Making, 420-28; also mentioned in Michael Mason, The making of Victorian sexual attitudes (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 136. 3. Allan Stewart, The abominations of the Wroeites (or Christian Israelites) fully and completely exposed (Melbourne: Abbott, 1863) 4. Mark Finnane, "Sexuality and the social order: The state versus Chidley", in What rough beast? The state and social order in Australian history (Sydney, 1982): 192-219; Mark Finnane, "The popular defence of Chidley", Labour History, No. 41 (1981): 57-73; S. McInerney, Introduction to The confessions of William James Chidley (St Lucia, Aust., 1977); G.A. Edwards and Wayne Hall, "The case of William Chidley: A study in psychiatry, morality and lunacy law", Australian and New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry 14 (1980): 133-9 5. Although he was not persuaded by Chidley's theories, Havelock Ellis listened to them without ridicule and sought to encourage his gift for poetic expression. He deplored Chidley's persecution by the authorities, admired his courageous persistence in the face of police harassment, and described him later as "the most original and remarkable figure that has ever appeared in Australia", with the moral potential to be another Socrates. That was certainly going too far: although he called him an ascetic in the mould of Augustine and Bunyan, Ellis seems to have appreciated neither the derivative character nor the coercive content of Chidley's doctrines. See Havelock Ellis, The dance of life (London, 1923): 72-3 6. Confessions: 40. Chidley left a very full account of his life in a revealing autobiography which he wrote during the 1890s. He sent a copy to Havelock Ellis who printed extracts from it in two volumes of his Studies in the psychology of sex, preserved the manuscript and later gave it to the Mitchell Library, Sydney. Apart from its frank account of the author's sexual experiences and fears, it offers a remarkable window into working class life in Australia during the late nineteenth century. The autobiography was published in 1977 as The confessions of William James Chidley, with an introduction by Sally McInerney. Extracts from the autobiography were printed in Ellis's Studies in the psychology of sex (two volume edition, New York, Random House, 1936) as follows: History III, Appendix B to Sexual selection in man, in Vol. 1, Part 3: 246-59; and History V, Appendix to Erotic symbolism, in Vol. 2, Part 1: 260-73 7. Chidley, Confessions: 137 8. Chidley published several editions of a pamphlet setting forth his theories. These are: The answer: A philosophical essay (Sydney, 1912); The answer: An essay in philosophy (Sydney, 1914); The Answer: or the world as joy: An essay in philosophy, Complete edition, with an introduction by Francis Anderson (Sydney, 1915). There is also a typescript version in his papers in the Mitchell Library, Sydney: ML MSS143/6. In addition, Chidley prepared an article called "Erection", which he hoped to get published in the British Medical Journal, but eventually printed as a pamphlet (now very rare): The phenomena of erection (Sydney, n.d. [1916]), copy in Mitchell Library; the TS is in the Chidley papers: ML MSS143/6 9. Answer 1912: 27 10. Chidley could have read all these books at the State Library of Victoria, which still holds numerous works by Carpenter, including his Principles of human physiology (1881); several editions of Beaney's books; three texts by E.A. Schafer (Textbook of physiology (1900), Essentials of histology (1907), Experimental physiology (1912)); and Michael Foster's Textbook of physiology (1888 and 1893 edns). The library does not now hold a copy of Acton's Functions and disorders, but it used to hold a copy of the first edition, now missing. (Information from SLV, 24 April 2003) 11. (Sir) Michael Foster (1836-1907) was the first professor of physiology at Cambridge, and successor to Carpenter as Britain's leading authority on the subject. His Textbook of physiology was first published in 1876. See Oxford Companion to Medicine (New York, 1986): Vol. I, 403 12. Answer 1912: 12. Although Chidley attributes this statement to Schafer, it is actually a quote from Carpenter. 13. Answer 1915: 165, 166-7; see also Confessions 169, where Chidley cites Foster's texts on physiology. 14. Erection: 3-4; MS: 9 15. Answer 1915: 163 16. Answer 1915: 196-7 misquoting Functions and disorders (3rd edn): 125 and 170 17. TS draft of The answer, ML MSS143/6: 83-4 18. Answer 1912: 48 19. Answer 1912: 40 20. Answer 1915: 158 21. Claude-Francois Lallemand, A practical treatise on the causes, symptoms and treatment of spermatorrhoea, trans. and ed. Henry J. McDougall, 3rd American edition, (Philadelphia: Blanchard and Lea, 1858): 135 22. Erection: 3-4; Functions and disorders: 153 23. Finnane, "Popular defence": 68, 72 24. Functions and disorders: 115, 117-18 25. Erection: 2; MS: 4 26. Answer 1915: 196 27. Answer 1912: 50 28. Transcript: 619 29. Transcript: 386 30. Transcript: 519 31. Transcript: 99, 102-3 32. A mental hospital in the country to which Chidley had been transferred to put him beyond the reach of his friends in Sydney. 33. Transcript: 583, 594, 598-9 34. Transcript: 104, 162, 175, 126-7 35. Confessions: 169, 197 36. Hunt, Governing morals 37. Confessions: 249-50, 254 38. Chidley's last message to the public, quoted in Confessions: xiv 39. Walker, David. Continence for a nation: Seminal loss and national vigour. Labour History 1985; No. 48:1â€“14; Modern nerves, nervous moderns: Notes on male neurasthenia. Australian Cultural History 1987; No. 6:49â€“63; Energy and fatigue. Australian Cultural History 1994; No. 13. 40. Walker, David. Continence for a nation: Seminal loss and national vigour. Labour History 1985; No. 48: p. 7. 41. Freeman, Howard and Dr Wallace. Rescued at last: Being clinical experiences on nervous and private diseases. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. Chapter 4, pp. 30â€“51. 42. Towle, WB. The sexual system in health and disease. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. 11th edition. pp. 107â€“8. 43. Freeman, Howard and Dr Wallace. Rescued at last: Being clinical experiences on nervous and private diseases. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. p. 98. 44. Freeman, Howard and Dr Wallace. Rescued at last: Being clinical experiences on nervous and private diseases. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. pp. 199â€“205. 45. Towle, WB. The sexual system in health and disease. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. 11th edition. p. 108. 46. Towle, WB. The sexual system in health and disease. Sydney; No publisher or date of publication [1898?]. 11th edition. p. 161. 47. Quaife, WF. Tinnitus connected with onanism. Australasian Medical Gazette 1896; XV:20â€“22 . Discussed in Walker D. Continence for a nation: Seminal loss and national vigour. Labour History 1985; No. 48: pp. 8â€“9. 48. Courtenay, FB. On spermatorrhoea and certain functional derangements and debilities of the generative system: Their nature, treatment and cure. London: Bailliere, Tindall and Co.; 1882; 12th edition. 49. Beaney. Spermatorrhoea in its physiological, medical and legal aspects. Melbourne: Walker publishers; 1870. p. x. Further references in this paragraph are inserted in the text. 50. Beaney. The generative system and its functions in health and disease. Melbourne: FF Bailliere; 1872. p. 146. 51. Lewis, Milton and Macleod, Roy. Medical politics and the professionalisation of medicine in New South Wales, 1850â€“1901. Journal of Australian Studies 1988; No. 22:69â€“82 52. Lewis M and Macleod R. Medical politics and the professionalisation of medicine in New South Wales, 1850â€“1901. Journal of Australian Studies 1988; No. 22: p. 79. 53. Lewis M and Macleod R. Medical politics and the professionalisation of medicine in New South Wales, 1850â€“1901. Journal of Australian Studies 1988; No. 22: pp. 78â€“9. 54. Moran. Viewless winds: Being the recollections and digressions of an Australian surgeon. London: Peter Davies; 1939. pp. 102, 203â€“6. 55. Australian Dictionary of Biography. Vol 7. p. 103. 56. Arthur, Richard. Purity and impurity. Sydney: Australian White Cross League; n.d. [c.1900]. p. 8. 57. Arthur, Richard. The training of children in purity: A booklet for parents. Sydney: George Robertson; n.d. [c.1900]. p. 15. 58. Hyam, Ronald. Empire and sexuality: The British experience. Manchester: Manchester University Press; 1990. pp. 65â€“71. 59. Arthur, Richard. Purity and impurity. Sydney: Australian White Cross League; n.d. [c.1900]. pp. 10â€“11. 60. Arthur has evidently read his Acton, who had described nocturnal emissions "occurring once every ten or fourteen days" as "in the nature of a safety valve", but that if they were more frequent or "attended by symptoms of prostration" the "patient" should seek medical advice (William Acton. The functions and disorders of the reproductive organs. 6th edition. London: J. and A. Churchill; 1903. p. 105). The more hot-blooded Philip Muskett was willing to allow boys two wet dreams a week before apprehension need be felt: Muskett, Philip. The illustrated Australian medical guide. Sydney: William Brooks; 1903; 2 vols. II, p. 203. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource William Chidley and the BMA darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> A study by Dr Greg Watters and Stephen Carroll, of Deakin University, Victoria, has found that the reasons given by mothers for wanting to have their baby boys circumcised are based on outdated and mistaken information or bad advice from family members. A summary of the paper appears below. Introduction The routine, non-ritual circumcision of neo-natal males remains a controversial subject in Australia, New Zealand and other Anglo-Celtic settler societies. Circumcision was almost universal amongst Anglo-Celtic Australians until the 1960s. However, many surgeons and medical societies, including our own, now discourage this practice as unnecessary and potentially dangerous. Despite numerous efforts at the education of parents in the function and care of the foreskin, there remains a strong demand for circumcision amongst mothers of newborn males. This paper attempts to analyse the reasons for this demand. Methods The mothers of all boys born in Port Macquarie Base Hospital between June 1999 and June 2002 were retrospectively surveyed with a mailed questionnaire. A small group of those surveyed also took part in face-to-face interviews. The mothers' were asked if their sons were circumcised or if they had seriously considered circumcision prior to birth. The questionnaires also identified the demographics of theparticipants including their religion, level of education and ethnic origin. The mothers' attitudes towards routine circumcision and their perceptions of the advantages and disadvantages of the procedure were explored. Factors that influenced mothers in their decision-making, including information provided by medical practitioners, were identified. Results One hundred and twenty four of the 1027 mothers were sent questionnaires had changed address and could not be contacted. Of those who were contacted, 435 (48%) replied. To reduce the role of cultural and religious factors, 60 replies from mothers who did not identify themselves as Anglo-Celtic were discarded and 375 questionnaires were then analysed. Of the mothers who replied, 41% had had their sons circumcised and a further 36% had given it serious consideration. Mothers who chose circumcision were younger and more likely to have circumcised partners and fathers. They were more likely to profess a religious faith and be less well educated than mothers who did not consider circumcision. The perceived advantages of circumcision included pseudo-medical reasons (prevention of HIV, infections and cancers) and social reasons ("to look like dad", be cleaner, prevent masturbation etc). Mothers who chose circumcision claimed to be unaware of the potential risks of the procedure. They also strongly believed that it was a maternal right to have their son circumcised. Conclusions The medico-legal and ethical implications of these results are discussed. It is also argued that non-ritual, neo-natal circumcision is predominantly a cultural rather than a medical phenomena. As a result, education on the function and care of the foreskin will be unsuccessful if it is based solely on a medical model. The paper was given at a conference of urological surgeons in March2003. Just like dad: Maternal attitudes to neo-natal circumcision in an Anglo-Celtic settler society By Greg Watters, Port Macquarie Hospital, NSW and Deakin University, Vic, and Stephen Carroll, Deakin University Urological Society of Australasia 2003 Annual Scientific Meeting Queenstown, New Zealand 2 - 6 March 2003 Watters and Carroll are also authors of a useful book on the penis: Your Penis: A User's Guide <a href="https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9838081507">http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/9838081507</a> </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why some mothers want to circumcise darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> <h3>The Age (Melbourne) 1996</h3> There is no medical reason why baby boys are circumcised. Why then do we put newborn children through such pain? PAMELA BONE reports. ONE had to feel sorry for baby Kane, with a blood-stained bandage sticking to his poor little penis in an episode of the ABC's recent documentary-soap, 'Sylvania Waters'. However, as Paul, his father, lovingly explained to the baby, "It has to be done because when Daddy was a little boy and he went to the toilet with the other kids, the ones that weren't circumcised were laughed at. They weren't normal because they weren't circumcised." Even so, Paul said, he had to cry himself when he saw the tears running down the baby's face after the cut. But was little Kane's pain necessary? Because, contrary to what Paul believes, by the time Kane goes to school he is more likely to be different because he is circumcised. A generation ago parents who didn't want their baby boy circumcised had to take a firm stand. Today it is parents who do want their child circumcised who have to take a stand. Nearly everyone, in this country at least, finds the idea of female circumcision abhorrent. Bring up the subject of male circumcision, however, and you are likely to get reactions ranging from amusement to defensiveness and hostility; because the majority of Australian adult males, whether Christian, Jew, Muslim or atheist, have been circumcised. About 24 per cent of newly born boys in Australia are being circumcised today, but during the 1960s the proportion was about 70 per cent. Earlier, it was a routine procedure in Australian hospitals, almost as common as cutting the umbilical cord, and it was often done without the parents even having been consulted. Today most doctors agree that there is no medical reason why baby boys should be routinely circumcised. For Jews and Muslims, circumcision is a religious requirement. But Jews and Muslims together make up just over one per cent of the Australian population, which suggests that a lot of baby boys are undergoing a painful surgical procedure for no good reason. It is true that there is little comparison between the horrific practice of female circumcision, which is more properly described as genital mutilation, and male circumcision. Female circumcision, according to in which country the procedure is carried out, can range from what is described as a "ritual scratch" of the clitoris, to the removal of the clitoris and labia and even the sewing up of the area with catgut or thorns. It often leads to lifelong gynaecological problems. And it is done for an extremely nasty reason - to ensure a woman's sexual fidelity by denying her sexual pleasure. Male circumcision is the removal of the foreskin, the skin which usually covers and protects the head of the penis. The most common reason given for non-religious male circumcision is that it is more hygienic. But some men are now saying that male circumcision is genital mutilation, too, and that, like female circumcision, it represents a cruel denial of the human rights of a helpless child. In the United States, groups such as "Nocirc" have been campaigning strongly against the practice. They are facing a battle, because with 60 per cent of baby boys in the US still being circumcised, it is more common there than in any other Western country. (In Canada the rate is 40 per cent, in New Zealand two per cent, and in the countries of Europe less than one per cent, though that proportion is probably increasing with the growth of migration from Muslim countries). Male circumcision was carried out in Egypt 6000 years ago. It is also known to have been practised by Australian Aborigines about 300 years ago. In Judaism and Islam, circumcision is taken from the prophet Abraham, who, it was said, was directed by God to circumcise his sons. The earliest Christians had been Jews and so would have been circumcised in infancy. But St Paul, who had been an orthodox Jew, denounced circumcision as a heathen mutilation, and said Christian circumcision should be metaphorical, a control over oneself. So why did circumcision become so prevalent in Christian countries in the 19th and 20th centuries? It seems we have to thank for it the sexual repression of Victorian England. During the reign of Queen Victoria, circumcision was very widely practised, and the main reason for it was to "cure" masturbation. Masturbation, or the "secret vice" was an enormous worry in both England and America at that time. According to the experts of the day, it was responsible for sleeplessness, night terrors, frequent urination, bed-wetting, epilepsy, St Vitus's Dance, kidney disease and insanity. Dr Kellogg, of Cornflakes fame, listed 38 suspicious signs by which habitual masturbators could be detected, and recommended the eating of his breakfast products to effect a cure. While today it is known that the foreskin is naturally adherent in the newborn male and grows free later in childhood, in Victorian times "a tight foreskin" was seen as something that needed to be corrected. According to the "Ladies' Handbook of Home Treatment", published in 1907, "many a nervous, irritable, restless baby has been transformed into a most contented bit of humanity by the simple operation of circumcision". The same handbook noted that "A fact almost unknown among the laity is that girls sometimes require a slight operation which resembles circumcision in the boy ... Any girl who does not yield to the ordinary measures employed in the treatment of self-abuse should be examined with a view to having this operation performed ...". The mere fact "of undergoing an operation and of having the genital organs carefully covered with protective dressings and bandages for some time, tends in itself to lessen the force of the habit", the book said. A medical text book published in the US in 1912 noted that "circumcision for the girl or woman of any age is as necessary as for the boy or man ... but the girls have been neglected ... I do feel an irresistible urge to cry out against the shameful neglect of the clitoris and its hood". Despite such pleas, the practice of female circumcision never became as popular in Anglo-Saxon countries as did male circumcision. The Australian Medical Association has no official policy on male circumcision,* though a spokesman said it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a doctor who is comfortable with the procedure. The AMA "strongly disapproves of female circumcision". While female circumcision is not specifically forbidden by any Australian law, the Australian Law Reform Commission says there is little doubt that it would constitute an assault, and it would be no defence that the operation was performed in hospital by a doctor. (It is widely suspected, however, that female circumcision is taking place among some ethnic communities in Australia, and that some girls are sent overseas for the ritual.) Female circumcision is not a requirement of Islamic law. However, a study of female circumcision in Egypt in 1985 found that 81 per cent of a large group of women had been genitally mutilated, and of the sample, 94 per cent were Muslim and six per cent Coptic Christian. The study concluded that "religious beliefs are a strong predisposing factor for female genital mutilation. A large percentage of women whose genitals are mutilated are affiliated with the Islamic religion despite the fact that female genital mutilation is not prescribed by the Islamic religion". Male circumcision is legal in Australia and the costs of it are recoverable under Medicare. In 1985 the then Health Minister, Dr Blewett, attempted to drop the Medicare rebate for circumcision of babies under six months, but reversed the decision after pressure from Jewish and Muslim communities. Dr Blewett said he was concerned that circumcision may be performed by untrained people if removal from Medicare "proved an economic hardship". The Australian College of Paediatrics discourages the practice of circumcision in newborn males (and of course in females). However, the registrar, Dr Paul Roy, said that the "religious imperative" of Jews and Muslims for male circumcision was respected. Are there any health benefits from routinely circumcising baby boys? There are some studies that show that baby boys who have been circumcised have fewer urinary tract infections in the first 12 months. However, Dr Roy said, even if circumcision does helps prevent urinary tract infections in newborn boys, it is not sufficient reason for routine circumcisions. "It means doing 100 circumcisions to prevent one infection. One only has to see a couple of boys get a mutilated penis to realise it is not a good enough reason." Dr Roy said circumcision of newborn boys was not done under anaesthetic and agreed it "must hurt like crazy". Dr George Williams, a Sydney paediatrician who is writing a book about male circumcision, says on the available evidence there is no medical reason for routine circumcision. He said penile hygiene can be maintained simply by washing with soap** and water without forcible retraction of the foreskin. He also said the foreskin contains tactile sensitive structures for erotogenic function. It used to be believed that the partners of uncircumcised men were more likely to develop cervical cancer. However, Dr Williams said studies that indicated this were "confounded by other variables". A large study in the US in 1973 found there was no difference in the circumcision status of sexual partners of women who had developed cervical cancer from that of other women. Some men who are campaigning against circumcision say it is most often done because of pressure from the mother, as a kind of Freudian revenge against all men. But Dr Williams says that in his experience it is usually wanted by the father, because the father has himself been circumcised and wants his son to be just like him. Circumcision may become necessary for some men in later life. But adults are capable of making an informed decision about whether or not to have the operation, whereas babies are not. Circumcision is a surgical procedure with inherent risks of bleeding, trauma and mutilation, pain and infection, and rarely, death. The onus of proof should be to show that it is not harmful, Dr Williams said. But even if there are no compelling medical reasons for it, most men who were circumcised will stoutly defend the practice. "It didn't affect me", is the common response. How can they know, if they were circumcised as babies? One man, who had been circumcised at the age of 23, said in an article in the US 'Journal of Nurse-Midwifery': "On a scale of 10, the intact penis experiences pleasure that is at least 11 or 12; the circumcised penis is lucky to get to three. If American men who were circumcised at birth could know the deprivation of pleasure they would experience they would storm the hospitals and not permit their sons to undergo this unnecessary loss." It is true that all kinds of unnecessary surgical procedures are carried out, from ear-piercing and tattooing to hair transplants and breast augmentation. These are done at the behest of adults, who supposedly can make an informed decision. A newborn child certainly can't. Opposition to male circumcision has been described as "bordering on paranoid". Yet men against circumcision believe it is discriminatory that while female circumcision is condemned, even if for religious reasons, male circumcision is condoned when it is done for religious reasons. John Fleming, a member of an informal group of men who have been campaigning in Australia against circumcision, says the human rights and legal aspects of both male and female circumcision of children need to be clarified. He says: "It is bizarre that while tattooing is illegal for children under 18 it is apparently OK for a doctor, or a religious-authority figure, to painfully mutilate for life a poor child's most sensitive organ." The United Nations convention on the rights of the child,*** recently ratified by Australia, guarantees the rights of all children to enjoy their own culture. However, the convention also calls upon the signatories to "take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children". Professor Carl Wood, of the department of obstetrics and gynaecology at the Monash Medical Centre (and well-known IVF pioneer) said the widespread use of circumcision for little or no medical advantage "is an emblem of brutality in society". "I hated performing the operation when I was a young doctor. No anaesthetic was used and the baby most often screamed. It appeared to be a much worse experience than birth and possibly the worst experience for the baby in its early life. What effect does this imprint have?" The Age (Melbourne), 2 December 1996, p. 6 <h3>Notes</h3> * In 1997 the AMA adopted a policy which stated: The AMA will discourage circumcision of baby boys in line with the Australian College of Paediatrics "Position Statement on Routine Circumcision of Normal Male Infants and Boys". The statement, released in June and supported by the AMA's November Federal Council meeting, includes: <ul> <li>The Australian College of Paediatrics should continue to discourage the practice of circumcision in newborns. </li> <li>Educational material should be available to parents before the birth of their baby and in maternity hospitals. </li> <li>Some parents after considering medical, social, religious and family factors will opt for circumcision. It is then the responsibility of the doctor to recommend this is performed at an age and under circumstances which reduce hazards to a minimum.</li> </ul> Australian Medicine, 6-20 January 1997, p. 5. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why doctors are cutting down on circumcision darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> Medical Societies MELBOURNE PAEDIATRIC SOCIETY A MEETING of the Melbourne Paediatric Society was held at the Children's Hospital, Melbourne, on Wednesday, November 12, 1952. <h3>Why Circumcise?</h3> Dr. JOHN D. BEGG read a paper entitled "Why Circumcise?". He said that the operation had been performed in many countries since time immemorial, but it was extraordinary how little was known of the origin and purpose of the ancient custom. It was performed in Egypt at least 4000 years. B.C., probably even earlier still, and was practised as a cult among the primitive peoples of such widely separated countries as Africa and the North American continent and among Australian aborigines. It had been a Jewish custom to circumcise on the eighth day after birth since early Biblical times, and although the Koran did not specifically ordain it, all Moslems were circumcised. It was a mystery why mankind, down the ages, should have shown such a strong aversion to the retention of a useful cutaneous appendage; for, despite the enormous literature on the subject, very fully dealt with in Hasting's "Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics", there was little real knowledge of the significance of the ancient rite. It was tempting to ascribe a hygienic motive to the procedure, but a critical view analysis of the literature does not support such a view. Even if the view was found to be empirically correct, it could scarcely have been the original motive that prompted the Egyptians to circumcise their young. Gray, in the Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics", concluded his summary by finding that in its inception, and late into its development, circumcision was essentially a religious custom, embracing in its broadest sense several concepts of an ideological nature. Thus, it might signify a sanctification of the reproductive organs, ensuring abundant fertility; it might be related to the ancient idea of human sacrifice-sacrifice of a small portion of the body as a propitiation of the Deity to protect the whole; or it might serve as initiation of the youth into the full manhood of the tribe. With primitive peoples the operation was usually carried out to the accompaniment of various ceremonials, often of a cruel and revolting nature; but in contradistinction to these, one Australian tribe performed a mock ceremony before the candidate, flourishing a large wooden knife, but leaving him untouched. That it had a deeply religious significance to the Jews was, of course, a matter of common knowledge, but whilst one maintained ancient usages, it was reasonable to examine critically a procedure which although performed as a religious rite by one section of the community, was also carried out very frequently for supposedly surgical reasons by another. Circumcision was performed on some 75% of male children born in Melbourne's private maternity homes, and although it was not performed routinely at the Women's or the Queen Victoria Hospital, many of the babies born in those institutions were later subjected to the operation at the Children's Hospital, or else at the paediatric departments of the Alfred, Queen Victoria, Prince Henry's and Saint Vincent's Hospitals, as well as at the hands of private medical practitioners. Figures revealed that in the hospitals mentioned nearly a thousand babies were circumcised annually; but as about six thousand boys were born annually in Melbourne's two major public maternity hospitals, even if allowance was made for circumcisions performed by private practitioners, the incidence of the operation was very much lower than in those of the higher income groups who attended the private institutions where three-quarters of the male babies were circumcised. <a href="http://www.cirp.org/library/general/gairdner/">Gairdner</a>, in the British Medical Journal of December 24, 1949, in making a comparison between children attending the best known public schools and those attending state institutions, had stated that "either the boys of well-to-do parents are suffering circumcision much too often or those of the poorer parents not often enough". Dr. Begg then discussed the development and function of the prepuce, as described by Gairdner. He said it developed as a ring of thickened epidermis growing forward over the glans, and during its development, which was frequently incomplete at birth, the squamous epithelium lining the inner surface of the prepuce and the outer surface of the glans was fused into one single sheet. According to <a href="http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/deibert/">Deibert</a>, a separation into two separate linings took place by the epithelium arranging itself into whorls, in the centres of which degeneration occurred. The fusion of these degenerate areas ultimately formed a continuous sub-preputial space. The process, which was seldom complete at birth, might be arrested at any stage of its development. Thus, again, according to Gairdner, only 4% of babies had a fully retractable foreskin at birth, only 25% at six months, and 50% at the end of the first year. At the end of the second year. At the end of the third year, however, 90% of children would have a retractable foreskin; so that it was obviously fallacious to regard non-retractability of the foreskin at birth as synonymous with phimosis. Even those which could not readily be retracted at the age of three years could usually be rendered easily retractable by the separation with a probe of the residual strands of undegenerated epithelium still persisting between the inner preputial layer and the outer layer of the glans. Dr. Begg said that he had no accurate figures with which to confirm the statistics, but eleven years of observation in a provincial town where very few babies were circumcised had convinced him that true phimosis must be a very rare condition. (Note: The values regarding age of foreskin retractability provided by Gairdner in 1949 have since been shown to be incorrect. See the <a href="http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/178_11_020603/matters_arising_020603-1.html">letter in the Medical Journal of Australia</a> for more information.) The function of the prepuce seemed obviously to clothe and protect the sensitive glans, not only during the early years of incontinence when the organ was in contact with urine-soaked clothes, but throughout life as well. Like other surgical operations, circumcision carried an operative risk. The risk was admittedly small, but haemorrhage, sepsis, and anaesthetic accidents could occur, whilst, as the operation was frequently performed by practitioners of little surgical skill, mutilation of the organ was unfortunately by no means rare. The figures for Australia were not readily available, but for the five-year period from 1942 to 1947, an average of sixteen children died annually as a direct result of the operation in England and Wales. There was every reason to believe that a proportionate mortality would prevail in Australia. Contact of the delicate tip of the glans with ammonia-soaked clothes not infrequently led to ulceration of the urethral meatus, and that, apart from being exceedingly painful, was at times difficult to heal and could even lead to a meatal stricture. That complication of circumcision was particularly likely to occur in a child whose prepuce had become redundant from ammonia irritation-an appearance which unfortunately was regarded by some doctors as a particular indication for circumcision. Removal of the foreskin in such circumstances had been likened by a contributor to the British Medical Journal some years previously to "a soldier taking off his tin hat when the shrapnel was falling"; the irritation was transferred to the meatus with the inevitable result. Dr. Begg then proceeded to examine the reasons given by parents for requesting that their child be subjected to the operation, and mentioned that inquiries from the nursing staffs of maternity hospitals revealed that the majority of babies were circumcised at the request of their parents and not at the advice of their doctors. Dr. Begg said that in his experience in questioning mothers of newborn babies on the reason for requesting circumcision, by far the most common reason given-and this was confirmed by nursing staffs-was that the father wanted it done. The information was imparted by the mother with a slightly mysterious air as if questioning that anyone should doubt the paternal wisdom. On being further questioned, most would volunteer that they thought it prevented the child from wetting the bed or that it prevented in some mysterious way the development of venereal disease or the habit of masturbation. No doctor these days would seriously regard circumcision as a cure of enuresis, whilst, if the psychiatrists were to be believed, masturbation occurred in both sexes, and appeared to have no relation to the presence or absence of the prepuce. Venereologists agreed that the circumcised man who contracted syphilis or gonorrhoea was easier to manage, but there was no real evidence that the operation in any way lessened the incidence of those diseases. The matter was of still less importance at the present time, with chemotherapy and the greatly lessened incidence of venereal disease in general. Cleanliness was another reason given by parents, and it was in regard to that that a considerable misconception existed amongst both medical and non-medical people. It was true that smegma, the main source of which was generated epithelium lining the glans and prepuce, together with a variable amount from minute secretory glands near the fraenum, did collect in the retro-coronal sulcus, but in the young child it was non-odorous and entirely harmless. Later, as mild decomposition of the smegma might occur, and as infection might then be added, it was wise to take steps to remove it. At the stage when that was likely to happen, however, separation of the two layers had taken place, and the foreskin, if not readily retractable, could easily be made so. Miscellaneous reasons, such as "we believe in it" and the frankly feminine one, "it looks nicer," were occasionally given. Circumcision, therefore, though sometimes advised by the obstetrician, was more often performed by him to satisfy the parental wish. If non-retractability of the foreskin at birth was regarded with equanimity, it would be found that in time the vast majority of foreskins were so easily retracted as to fall within the scope of all but the most incapable. It appeared to be an indisputable fact that carcinoma of the penis was virtually unknown in those circumcised before the age of five. It did, however, occur occasionally in Moslems who were circumcised between the sixth and the fourteenth years, but less commonly than in the uncircumcised. Thus Kennaway, in the British Journal of Cancer, comparing the incidence of the disease in Moslems with that of Hindus, among whom the operation was taboo, in fourteen hospitals in India, showed that the ratio of penile cancer to male cancer in Hindus was a high as 1:3.9, while that in Moslems was only 1:34.3. He suggested that failure of the operation until the fourteenth year to confer the immunity produced by that performed in infancy, was due to carcinogens retained in the coronal sulcus, and if carcinoma of the penis was a common disease, there could be a very potent argument in favour of universal circumcision at an early age. The disease, however, was not a common one, particularly in western countries. An average of 6.3 cases annually were met with in Melbourne's public hospitals over a five-year period, representing only 0.3% of male carcinomata in general. Furthermore, it usually occurred in persons with a low standard of personal hygiene, and was almost always associated with true organic phimosis. Accordingly, a disease whose main incidence was after the sixth decade of life, and which was probably as easily prevented by simple attention to cleanliness as by circumcision, could not be cited as a convincing argument for subjecting every baby boy to the operation. In conclusion, Dr. Begg summarized his paper by saying that circumcision, commencing as an expression of primitive man's religious emotions, was carried on largely as a response to a widespread public demand. That demand was based on a misconception of the benefits conferred by the operation, which in the great majority of children is unnecessary. As unnecessary surgery was bad surgery, the time has come when the profession should deprecate its widespread performance in infancy except for religious reasons. Indications for the operation existed only if, after the first few years, true phimosis was found to be present. In short, the answer to the question which formed the title of the paper, "Why Circumcise?", must be found in many cases "Why indeed?". DR. F. STONEHAM said he agreed with Dr. Begg. Phimosis could be corrected by dilatation of the foreskin with sinus forceps in most cases and circumcision was not necessary. DR. J. FARBER said that at birth the prepuce could be retracted in certain infants but not in others. He had been surprised at the number of infants whose prepuce was not retractable at birth, but was easily retractable two to three months later. DR. M. L. POWELL referred to the advisability of circumcision in some cases in the tropics as a means to reducing dermatitis of the prepuce and glans penis. He wondered if that fact had any significance with regard to religious rites amongst Moslems. Dr. Begg replied that during the last war circumcised serviceman had certainly suffered less dermatitis of the penis, and he agreed with Dr. Powell that might have been the basis of circumcision in some religions. Medical Journal of Australia, 1953 (1), pp. 603-4 <h4>NOTE</h4> This paper was an antipodean response to Douglas Gairdner's famous article, "The fate of the foreskin" (British Medical Journal, December 1949), and it shows that Australian paediatricians were already sceptical of the benefits of indiscriminate circumcision. What is interesting, however, is how little influence this paper seems to have exercised, or at least how long it took to have an effect: what we know of the figures suggests that the incidence of neonatal circumcision continued to increase until the mid-1950s or even the early 1960s, and then began to decline only slowly. Still, the paper is of great historic interest, showing how little the debate on the so called pros and cons of circumcision has changed over the past half-century. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Why circumcise? darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> <h1>Detroit, Michigan</h1> A Federal judge in Detroit, Michigan, has ruled that the Federal United States law criminalising any form of female genital mutilation (FGM) is unconstitutional. The case arose when Federal law enforcement officials prosecuted members of an Islamic sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, for performing ritual cutting on the genitals of young girls. The defendants did not deny that the cutting took place, but contended that it was allowable under the principle of religious freedom, and further that the law prohibiting it was not constitutionally valid. It is significant that the judge did not make any ruling on the principal claims of the defendants, that the cutting was not mutilation but a harmless nick or scraping, and that it was required by their religion and permitted as an instance of religious freedom. The judgement was strictly on the constitutional and jurisdictional grounds that the US Constitution did not give Congress the power to legislate on this matter (essentially an instance of criminal assault) and thus that the law was ultra vires. The law was based on the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce; but as the judge remarked, "There is nothing economic or commercial about FGM, As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault" - and thus a matter for State law. According to media reports, 27 of the US states have passed laws criminalising FGM. This does not necessarily mean that the practice is legal in the other 23, as instances could still be prosecuted under normal laws of assault, wounding, bodily harm etc, as occurred in Australia with the <a href="https://www.darboninstitute.org/gaol_sentence_increased_for_fgm_doctor" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Graeme Reeves ("butcher of Bega") case</a>. As the judge pointed out in his ruling, "counsel for the government argued ... that FGM is criminal sexual conduct because it involves unlawful touching and penetration. If that is correct, then FGM could already be prosecuted in every state under existing criminal sexual conduct statutes, to say nothing of battery or child abuse statutes." Because the charges have been dismissed on jurisdictional (technical legal) grounds, the substantive issues remain in contention: we may expect to see a great deal more debate as to whether the principle of freedom of religion extends to practices that inflict harm on the bodies of children, and whether general principles of human rights and bioethics apply to boys as much as to girls. When the FGM law was presented to Congress in 1996, the proposer (Senator Reid) was emphatic that the fundamental objection to FGM was that it was a violation of a girls' human rights: “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to understand that what I am going to talk about here today does not deal with religion and it does not deal with sex. It deals with violation of a person’s human rights. It deals with degradation of women and young girls. It deals with the most inhumane thing a person can imagine.” Critics have since pointed out that these observations are equally applicable to circumcision of boys and that there were also grounds for finding the FGM law unconstitutional in the basis that it denied equal treatment to males. Indeed the judge raised this very issue in rejecting the prosecution's contention that the law was valid because it sought to give effect to Article 24 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, ratified in 1992, and thus having the force of law within the USA. As he points out, the object of that article was to give certain rights to all children, irrespective of sex or other characteristics; it could not, therefore, be a basis for giving protections or privileges to girls only. The judge did not spell this out, but he left the implication that if the law had protected girls and boys equally it might have been valid. The relevant paragraphs are on pp 5-6: The treaty on which the government relies in the present case is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), which the Senate ratified in 1992. Specifically, the government points to two provisions of this treaty: Article 3, which calls on the signatories to “ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights set forth in the present Covenant”; and Article 24, which states that “[e]very child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.” The government argues that Congress, by enacting the FGM statute, acted reasonably to carry out these two treaty obligations. The Court rejects the government’s argument for two reasons. First, there is no rational relationship between the FGM statute and Article 3, which obligates member states “to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights set forth in the present Covenant.” This article seeks to ensure equal civil and political rights (e.g., the freedom of expression, the right to participate in elections, and protections for defendants in criminal proceedings) for men and women, while the FGM statute seeks to protect girls aged seventeen and younger from a particular form of physical abuse. There is simply no rational relationship between Article 3 and the FGM statute. The latter does not effectuate the purposes of the former in any way. The relationship between the FGM statute and Article 24 is arguably closer. As noted, that article states that “[e]very child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.” Still, the relationship between the FGM statute and Article 24 is tenuous. Article 24 is an anti-discrimination provision, which calls for the protection of minors without regard to their race, color, sex, or other characteristics. As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be, it does not logically further the goal of protecting children on a non-discriminatory basis. <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/393706333/Judge-dismisses-several-charges-in-FGM-case" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Full text of court ruling</a> <h2>Press report from Detroit Free Press</h2> In a major blow to the government, a federal judge in Detroit has declared America's female genital mutilation law as unconstitutional, thereby dismissing the key charges against two Michigan doctors and six others accused of subjecting at least nine minor girls to the cutting procedure in the nation's first FGM case. The historic case involves minor girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, including some who cried, screamed and bled during the procedure and one who was given Valium ground in liquid Tylenol to keep her calm, court records show. The judge's ruling also removed three mothers from the case, including two Minnesota women whom prosecutors said tricked their 7 -year-old daughters into thinking they were coming to Metro Detroit for a girls' weekend, but instead had their genitals cut at a Livonia clinic as part of a religious procedure. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman concluded that "as despicable as this practice may be," Congress did not have the authority to pass the 22-year-old federal law that criminalizes female genital mutilation, and that it's a matter for the state's to regulate. FGM is banned worldwide and has been outlawed in more than 30- countries, though the U.S. statute had never been tested before this case. "As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be ... federalism concerns deprive Congress of the power to enact this statute," Friedman wrote in his 28-page opinion, noting: "Congress overstepped its bounds by legislating to prohibit FGM ... FGM is a 'local criminal activity' which, in keeping with longstanding tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress." Currently, 27 states have laws that criminalize female genital mutilation, including Michigan, whose FGM law is stiffer than the federal statute, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Michigan's FGM law was passed last year in the wake of the historic case and applies to both doctors who conduct the procedure, and parents who transport a child to have it done. Gina Balaya, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys office, said in a statement: "We are reviewing the judge’s opinion and will make a determination whether or not to appeal at some point in the future." Friedman's ruling stems from a request by Dr. Jumana Nagarwala and her co-defendants to dismiss the genital mutilation charges, claiming the law they are being prosecuted under is unconstitutional. More specifically, the defendants have argued that “Congress lacked authority to enact" the genital mutilation statute, "thus the female genital mutilation charges must be dismissed.” They also argue that they didn't actually practice genital mutilation, but rather engaged in a benign religious ritual that involves only a scraping of the genitals. "Oh my God, we won!," declared Shannon Smith, Nagarwala's lawyer, who expects the government to appeal. "But we are confident we will win even if appealed." Smith has maintained all along that her client did not engage in FGM, but rather performed a benign religious procedure that involved nicking, not cutting. "Dr. Nagarwala is just a wonderful human being. She was always known as a doctor with an excellent reputation," Smith said. "The whole community was shocked when this happened. She's always been known to be a stellar doctor, mother, person." For FGM survivor and social activist Mariya Taher, who heads a campaign out of Cambridge, Mass. to ban genital cutting worldwide, Friedman's ruling was a punch to the gut. "Oh my God, this is crazy," said Taher, stressing she fears the ruling will put more young women in harms way. "Unfortunately, this is going to embolden those who believe that this must be continued ... they’ll feel that this is permission, that it’s okay to do this." Taher, who at 7 was subjected to the same type of religious cutting procedure that's at issue in the Michigan case, said she doesn't expect laws alone to end FGM. But they are needed, she stressed. "This is a violation of one person’a human rights. It's a form of gender violence … This is cultural violence," 35-year-old Taher said. The statute at issue states: "Whoever knowingly circumcises, excises or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person" under the age of 18 shall be fined or imprisoned for up to five years, or both. Prosecutors argue Nagarwala, the lead defendant, did exactly that when she cut the genitals of two 7-year-old Minnesota girls who were tricked into the procedure in 2017 by their mothers and cried and bled afterward. They said Nagarwala did this with the help of Dr. Fakhuruddin Attar, who is accused of letting Nagarwala use his Livonia clinic after hours to carry out the procedures; and his wife, Farida Attar, who is accused of assisting Nagarwala in the examination room during the procedures and holding the girls' hands. Prosecutors allege that Nagarwala may have subjected up to 100 girls to the procedure over a 12-year period, though they have cited nine victims in the case: two 7-year-old girls from Minnesota; four Michigan girls ages 8-12, including one who was given Valium ground up in liquid Tylenol during her procedure; and three Illinois girls. Nagarwala, meanwhile, is still facing a conspiracy charge and an obstruction count that could send her to prison for 20 years, along with the Attars. If convicted of conspiracy, Nagarwala faces up to 30 years in prison. Nagarwala has long maintained that she committed no crime and that she was charged under a law that slid through Congress without proper vetting. “The law was never debated on the floor of either chamber of Congress nor was there ever any legislative hearing addressing the justification or need for the federal law. Instead, all that exists is the criminal statute itself,” defense lawyers have argued in court documents, claiming the driving force behind the legislation was one lawmaker's belief that the prohibited conduct was 'repulsive and cruel.' " But the Constitution demands more than that, the defense has argued, claiming Congress could not have passed a female genital mutilation ban under the Commerce Clause because "notably, here, the activity being regulated has absolutely no effect on interstate commerce." The judge agreed. "There is nothing commercial or economic about FGM," Friedman writes. "As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault ... FGM is not part of a larger market and it has no demonstrated efect on interstate commerce. The commerce Clause does not permit Congress to regulate a crime of this nature." The prosecution disagrees, arguing genital mutilation is an illegal, secretive and dangerous health care service that involves interstate commerce on a number of fronts: text messages are used to arrange the procedure; parents drive their children across state lines to get the procedure; and the doctor uses medical tools in state-licensed clinics to perform the surgeries. In defending the statute, prosecutors also have noted that FGM is condemned worldwide -- it's illegal in more than 30 countries. And they've cited the legislative history of the law, along with U.S. Senator Harry Reid's comments in pushing for a genital mutilation ban. “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to understand that what I am going to talk about here today does not deal with religion and it does not deal with sex. It deals with violation of a person’s human rights. It deals with degradation of women and young girls. It deals with the most inhumane thing a person can imagine,” Reid stated in 1994. On September 30, 1996, the female genital mutilation law was signed, with Reid stressing: “There is no medical reason for this procedure ... It is used as a method to keep girls chaste and to ensure their virginity until marriage, and to ensure that after marriage they do not engage in extramarital sex.” The female genital mutilation statute carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison. The defendants, meanwhile, also face up to 20 years in prison on obstruction of justice charges, if convicted. The most serious charge against Nagarwala — conspiracy to transport a minor "with intent to engage in criminal sexual conduct" — carries a maximum life sentence. Four mothers also have been charged, accused of subjecting their daughters to the unlawful procedure. The defendants are all members of a small Indian Muslim sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra, which has a mosque in Farmington Hills. The sect practices female circumcision and believes it is a religious rite of passage that involves only a minor "nick." The case is set to go to trial in April 2019. Tresa Baldas. <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/11/20/female-genital-mutilation-michigan/1991712002/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Judge dismisses female genital mutilation charges in historic case</a>. Detroit Free Press 20 November 2018. <h2>Further information</h2> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc2-NB9nWt0" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Brian Earp analysis the background and implications of the ruling on Youtube talk</a> Brian Earp. <a href="http://quillette.com/2017/08/15/female-genital-mutilation-health-benefits-problem-medicalizing-morality/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Does Female Genital Mutilation have health benefits? The problem with medicalizing morality</a>. Quilllette, 15 August 2017. Robert Darby. <a href="https://quillette.com/2016/03/03/female-genital-cutting-harm-human-rights-and-the-possibility-of-a-sex-neutral-approach/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Female genital cutting: harm, human rights and the possibility of a sex-neutral approach</a>. Quillette, 3 March 2016. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource US law against FGM ruled to be unconstitutional darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> <h1>Detroit, Michigan</h1> A Federal judge in Detroit, Michigan, has ruled that the Federal United States law criminalising any form of female genital mutilation (FGM) is unconstitutional. The case arose when Federal law enforcement officials prosecuted members of an Islamic sect, the Dawoodi Bohra, for performing ritual cutting on the genitals of young girls. The defendants did not deny that the cutting took place, but contended that it was allowable under the principle of religious freedom, and further that the law prohibiting it was not constitutionally valid. It is significant that the judge did not make any ruling on the principal claims of the defendants, that the cutting was not mutilation but a harmless nick or scraping, and that it was required by their religion and permitted as an instance of religious freedom. The judgement was strictly on the constitutional and jurisdictional grounds that the US Constitution did not give Congress the power to legislate on this matter (essentially an instance of criminal assault) and thus that the law was ultra vires. The law was based on the power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce; but as the judge remarked, "There is nothing economic or commercial about FGM, As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault" - and thus a matter for State law. According to media reports, 27 of the US states have passed laws criminalising FGM. This does not necessarily mean that the practice is legal in the other 23, as instances could still be prosecuted under normal laws of assault, wounding, bodily harm etc, as occurred in Australia with the <a href="https://www.darboninstitute.org/gaol_sentence_increased_for_fgm_doctor" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Graeme Reeves ("butcher of Bega") case</a>. As the judge pointed out in his ruling, "counsel for the government argued ... that FGM is criminal sexual conduct because it involves unlawful touching and penetration. If that is correct, then FGM could already be prosecuted in every state under existing criminal sexual conduct statutes, to say nothing of battery or child abuse statutes." Because the charges have been dismissed on jurisdictional (technical legal) grounds, the substantive issues remain in contention: we may expect to see a great deal more debate as to whether the principle of freedom of religion extends to practices that inflict harm on the bodies of children, and whether general principles of human rights and bioethics apply to boys as much as to girls. When the FGM law was presented to Congress in 1996, the proposer (Senator Reid) was emphatic that the fundamental objection to FGM was that it was a violation of a girls' human rights: “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to understand that what I am going to talk about here today does not deal with religion and it does not deal with sex. It deals with violation of a person’s human rights. It deals with degradation of women and young girls. It deals with the most inhumane thing a person can imagine.” Critics have since pointed out that these observations are equally applicable to circumcision of boys and that there were also grounds for finding the FGM law unconstitutional in the basis that it denied equal treatment to males. Indeed the judge raised this very issue in rejecting the prosecution's contention that the law was valid because it sought to give effect to Article 24 of the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights, ratified in 1992, and thus having the force of law within the USA. As he points out, the object of that article was to give certain rights to all children, irrespective of sex or other characteristics; it could not, therefore, be a basis for giving protections or privileges to girls only. The judge did not spell this out, but he left the implication that if the law had protected girls and boys equally it might have been valid. The relevant paragraphs are on pp 5-6: The treaty on which the government relies in the present case is the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (“ICCPR”), which the Senate ratified in 1992. Specifically, the government points to two provisions of this treaty: Article 3, which calls on the signatories to “ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights set forth in the present Covenant”; and Article 24, which states that “[e]very child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.” The government argues that Congress, by enacting the FGM statute, acted reasonably to carry out these two treaty obligations. The Court rejects the government’s argument for two reasons. First, there is no rational relationship between the FGM statute and Article 3, which obligates member states “to ensure the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all civil and political rights set forth in the present Covenant.” This article seeks to ensure equal civil and political rights (e.g., the freedom of expression, the right to participate in elections, and protections for defendants in criminal proceedings) for men and women, while the FGM statute seeks to protect girls aged seventeen and younger from a particular form of physical abuse. There is simply no rational relationship between Article 3 and the FGM statute. The latter does not effectuate the purposes of the former in any way. The relationship between the FGM statute and Article 24 is arguably closer. As noted, that article states that “[e]very child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.” Still, the relationship between the FGM statute and Article 24 is tenuous. Article 24 is an anti-discrimination provision, which calls for the protection of minors without regard to their race, color, sex, or other characteristics. As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be, it does not logically further the goal of protecting children on a non-discriminatory basis. <a href="https://www.scribd.com/document/393706333/Judge-dismisses-several-charges-in-FGM-case" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Full text of court ruling</a> <h2>Press report from Detroit Free Press</h2> In a major blow to the government, a federal judge in Detroit has declared America's female genital mutilation law as unconstitutional, thereby dismissing the key charges against two Michigan doctors and six others accused of subjecting at least nine minor girls to the cutting procedure in the nation's first FGM case. The historic case involves minor girls from Michigan, Illinois and Minnesota, including some who cried, screamed and bled during the procedure and one who was given Valium ground in liquid Tylenol to keep her calm, court records show. The judge's ruling also removed three mothers from the case, including two Minnesota women whom prosecutors said tricked their 7 -year-old daughters into thinking they were coming to Metro Detroit for a girls' weekend, but instead had their genitals cut at a Livonia clinic as part of a religious procedure. U.S. District Judge Bernard Friedman concluded that "as despicable as this practice may be," Congress did not have the authority to pass the 22-year-old federal law that criminalizes female genital mutilation, and that it's a matter for the state's to regulate. FGM is banned worldwide and has been outlawed in more than 30- countries, though the U.S. statute had never been tested before this case. "As laudable as the prohibition of a particular type of abuse of girls may be ... federalism concerns deprive Congress of the power to enact this statute," Friedman wrote in his 28-page opinion, noting: "Congress overstepped its bounds by legislating to prohibit FGM ... FGM is a 'local criminal activity' which, in keeping with longstanding tradition and our federal system of government, is for the states to regulate, not Congress." Currently, 27 states have laws that criminalize female genital mutilation, including Michigan, whose FGM law is stiffer than the federal statute, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Michigan's FGM law was passed last year in the wake of the historic case and applies to both doctors who conduct the procedure, and parents who transport a child to have it done. Gina Balaya, spokesperson for the U.S. Attorneys office, said in a statement: "We are reviewing the judge’s opinion and will make a determination whether or not to appeal at some point in the future." Friedman's ruling stems from a request by Dr. Jumana Nagarwala and her co-defendants to dismiss the genital mutilation charges, claiming the law they are being prosecuted under is unconstitutional. More specifically, the defendants have argued that “Congress lacked authority to enact" the genital mutilation statute, "thus the female genital mutilation charges must be dismissed.” They also argue that they didn't actually practice genital mutilation, but rather engaged in a benign religious ritual that involves only a scraping of the genitals. "Oh my God, we won!," declared Shannon Smith, Nagarwala's lawyer, who expects the government to appeal. "But we are confident we will win even if appealed." Smith has maintained all along that her client did not engage in FGM, but rather performed a benign religious procedure that involved nicking, not cutting. "Dr. Nagarwala is just a wonderful human being. She was always known as a doctor with an excellent reputation," Smith said. "The whole community was shocked when this happened. She's always been known to be a stellar doctor, mother, person." For FGM survivor and social activist Mariya Taher, who heads a campaign out of Cambridge, Mass. to ban genital cutting worldwide, Friedman's ruling was a punch to the gut. "Oh my God, this is crazy," said Taher, stressing she fears the ruling will put more young women in harms way. "Unfortunately, this is going to embolden those who believe that this must be continued ... they’ll feel that this is permission, that it’s okay to do this." Taher, who at 7 was subjected to the same type of religious cutting procedure that's at issue in the Michigan case, said she doesn't expect laws alone to end FGM. But they are needed, she stressed. "This is a violation of one person’a human rights. It's a form of gender violence … This is cultural violence," 35-year-old Taher said. The statute at issue states: "Whoever knowingly circumcises, excises or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person" under the age of 18 shall be fined or imprisoned for up to five years, or both. Prosecutors argue Nagarwala, the lead defendant, did exactly that when she cut the genitals of two 7-year-old Minnesota girls who were tricked into the procedure in 2017 by their mothers and cried and bled afterward. They said Nagarwala did this with the help of Dr. Fakhuruddin Attar, who is accused of letting Nagarwala use his Livonia clinic after hours to carry out the procedures; and his wife, Farida Attar, who is accused of assisting Nagarwala in the examination room during the procedures and holding the girls' hands. Prosecutors allege that Nagarwala may have subjected up to 100 girls to the procedure over a 12-year period, though they have cited nine victims in the case: two 7-year-old girls from Minnesota; four Michigan girls ages 8-12, including one who was given Valium ground up in liquid Tylenol during her procedure; and three Illinois girls. Nagarwala, meanwhile, is still facing a conspiracy charge and an obstruction count that could send her to prison for 20 years, along with the Attars. If convicted of conspiracy, Nagarwala faces up to 30 years in prison. Nagarwala has long maintained that she committed no crime and that she was charged under a law that slid through Congress without proper vetting. “The law was never debated on the floor of either chamber of Congress nor was there ever any legislative hearing addressing the justification or need for the federal law. Instead, all that exists is the criminal statute itself,” defense lawyers have argued in court documents, claiming the driving force behind the legislation was one lawmaker's belief that the prohibited conduct was 'repulsive and cruel.' " But the Constitution demands more than that, the defense has argued, claiming Congress could not have passed a female genital mutilation ban under the Commerce Clause because "notably, here, the activity being regulated has absolutely no effect on interstate commerce." The judge agreed. "There is nothing commercial or economic about FGM," Friedman writes. "As despicable as this practice may be, it is essentially a criminal assault ... FGM is not part of a larger market and it has no demonstrated efect on interstate commerce. The commerce Clause does not permit Congress to regulate a crime of this nature." The prosecution disagrees, arguing genital mutilation is an illegal, secretive and dangerous health care service that involves interstate commerce on a number of fronts: text messages are used to arrange the procedure; parents drive their children across state lines to get the procedure; and the doctor uses medical tools in state-licensed clinics to perform the surgeries. In defending the statute, prosecutors also have noted that FGM is condemned worldwide -- it's illegal in more than 30 countries. And they've cited the legislative history of the law, along with U.S. Senator Harry Reid's comments in pushing for a genital mutilation ban. “I want everyone within the sound of my voice to understand that what I am going to talk about here today does not deal with religion and it does not deal with sex. It deals with violation of a person’s human rights. It deals with degradation of women and young girls. It deals with the most inhumane thing a person can imagine,” Reid stated in 1994. On September 30, 1996, the female genital mutilation law was signed, with Reid stressing: “There is no medical reason for this procedure ... It is used as a method to keep girls chaste and to ensure their virginity until marriage, and to ensure that after marriage they do not engage in extramarital sex.” The female genital mutilation statute carries a maximum punishment of five years in prison. The defendants, meanwhile, also face up to 20 years in prison on obstruction of justice charges, if convicted. The most serious charge against Nagarwala — conspiracy to transport a minor "with intent to engage in criminal sexual conduct" — carries a maximum life sentence. Four mothers also have been charged, accused of subjecting their daughters to the unlawful procedure. The defendants are all members of a small Indian Muslim sect known as the Dawoodi Bohra, which has a mosque in Farmington Hills. The sect practices female circumcision and believes it is a religious rite of passage that involves only a minor "nick." The case is set to go to trial in April 2019. Tresa Baldas. <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/detroit/2018/11/20/female-genital-mutilation-michigan/1991712002/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Judge dismisses female genital mutilation charges in historic case</a>. Detroit Free Press 20 November 2018. <h2>Further information</h2> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc2-NB9nWt0" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Brian Earp analysis the background and implications of the ruling on Youtube talk</a> Brian Earp. <a href="http://quillette.com/2017/08/15/female-genital-mutilation-health-benefits-problem-medicalizing-morality/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Does Female Genital Mutilation have health benefits? The problem with medicalizing morality</a>. Quilllette, 15 August 2017. Robert Darby. <a href="https://quillette.com/2016/03/03/female-genital-cutting-harm-human-rights-and-the-possibility-of-a-sex-neutral-approach/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Female genital cutting: harm, human rights and the possibility of a sex-neutral approach</a>. Quillette, 3 March 2016. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource US law against FGM ruled to be unconstitutional darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> The United States federal law criminalising any form of female genital cutting was passed by Congress as an addition to the U.S. Cade Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedures, and listed in Part I, Chapter 7, “Assault”. In other words, it categorises female genital cutting as an assault. The most relevant paragraph reads: "(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both." Sub-section (b) allows the operation to be performed if it is “necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner”. Source: <a href="http://law.justia.com/codes/us/2011/title-18/part-i/chapter-7/section-116/">18 U.S.C.A. § 116. Female genital mutilation</a> Congressional Findings Justifying the passage of the law, Congress advanced the following arguments: The Congress finds that: <ol> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation is carried out by members of certain cultural and religious groups within the United States;</li> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation often results in the occurrence of physical and psychological health effects that harm the women involved;</li> <li>such mutilation infringes upon the guarantees of rights secured by Federal and State law, both statutory and constitutional;</li> <li>the unique circumstances surrounding the practice of female genital mutilation place it beyond the ability of any single State or local jurisdiction to control;</li> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation can be prohibited without abridging the exercise of any rights guaranteed under the first amendment to the Constitution or under any other law; and</li> <li>Congress has the affirmative power under section 8 of article I, the necessary and proper clause, section 5 of the fourteenth Amendment, as well as under the treaty clause, to the Constitution to enact such legislation.</li> </ol> Section 645(a) of Div. C of Pub.L. 104-208 Why these observations would not apply just as strongly to circumcision of a boy is not obvious. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource US FGM law reflects cultural prejudice, not physical or ethical realities darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> The United States federal law criminalising any form of female genital cutting was passed by Congress as an addition to the U.S. Cade Title 18, Crimes and Criminal Procedures, and listed in Part I, Chapter 7, “Assault”. In other words, it categorises female genital cutting as an assault. The most relevant paragraph reads: "(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), whoever knowingly circumcises, excises, or infibulates the whole or any part of the labia majora or labia minora or clitoris of another person who has not attained the age of 18 years shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 5 years, or both." Sub-section (b) allows the operation to be performed if it is “necessary to the health of the person on whom it is performed, and is performed by a person licensed in the place of its performance as a medical practitioner”. Source: <a href="http://law.justia.com/codes/us/2011/title-18/part-i/chapter-7/section-116/">18 U.S.C.A. § 116. Female genital mutilation</a> Congressional Findings Justifying the passage of the law, Congress advanced the following arguments: The Congress finds that: <ol> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation is carried out by members of certain cultural and religious groups within the United States;</li> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation often results in the occurrence of physical and psychological health effects that harm the women involved;</li> <li>such mutilation infringes upon the guarantees of rights secured by Federal and State law, both statutory and constitutional;</li> <li>the unique circumstances surrounding the practice of female genital mutilation place it beyond the ability of any single State or local jurisdiction to control;</li> <li>the practice of female genital mutilation can be prohibited without abridging the exercise of any rights guaranteed under the first amendment to the Constitution or under any other law; and</li> <li>Congress has the affirmative power under section 8 of article I, the necessary and proper clause, section 5 of the fourteenth Amendment, as well as under the treaty clause, to the Constitution to enact such legislation.</li> </ol> Section 645(a) of Div. C of Pub.L. 104-208 Why these observations would not apply just as strongly to circumcision of a boy is not obvious. </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource US FGM law reflects cultural prejudice, not physical or ethical realities darby Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Robert Darby Subject The topic of the resource Circumcision history Description An account of the resource Archive of the work published by Robert Darby Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Robert Darby Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived circinfo.org historyofcircumcsion.org Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document <div class="intro" id="intro"> A recent study in Scotland concerns a group of 1000 children aged 0-16 years, consisting of 820 girls and 180 boys, who were referred to a centralized urinary tract infection unit in Western Scotland. UTIs are the only health problem for which there might conceivably be a tiny health benefit from early circumcision, but the study is of interest because it shows that UTIs are far more common in girls than in boys, and that circumcision is rarely necessary to correct cases of recurrent UTIs. The authors note that of the 180 boys referred for a first UTI, only 3 of them (1.7%) subsequently had to be circumcised due to recurrent UTIs. Since circumcision is rare in Scotland and “routine circumcision” practically unknown, it may be assumed that all (or nearly all) the boys were uncircumcised. This is suggested by the fact that the authors make no breakdown of the numbers by foreskin status. The authors also present age-specific male-female ratios showing that girls are far more subject to UTIs in all age groups, even among children under 6 month of age (where the M:F ratio is 1:2). This is in contrast to some other studies finding that in this age group boys outnumber girls. Given the nature and size of the study (unselected, consecutive material, except for the likely underrepresentation of children with prenatal urinary tract problems identified by ultrasound), the results provide solid evidence that UTIs in early infancy are not a particular male problem that requires particular “male solutions”. The protocol used here seems to catch the vast majority of children in need of intervention, and shows that circumcision has no preventive place in that protocol, except among those very few boys who experience recurrent UTIs. In other words, rather than advocating routine circumcision for the prevention of UTI in boys (which, in any case, occur in only 0.5%-1% of boys), circumcision should be reserved as an option in those very few boys (only 1.7% according to this study) who experience recurrent UTIS. This means that no more than about 0.01%-0.02% (2% of 0.5%-1.0%) of boys should ever need to be circumcised for this reason. Source: E. Broadis et al. ‘Targeted top down’ approach for the investigation of UTI: A 10-year follow-up study in a cohort of 1000 children. Journal of Pediatric Urology 2015 early view: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jpurol.2015.07.006 </div> Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Urinary tract infections: circumcision rarely needed darby