Note 94 — Chapter IV · OF MASTURBATION

It was not out of voluptuousness, but for decency’s sake that Jews, who had renounced their nation, had their prepuce redressed over the gland, as they did not wish it to be seen that they had been circumcized, so they took means to get their bare gland recovered. “And they made for themselves new prepuces” (Maccabees, I., 1., 15), “Is there anyone that has been brought to believe, circumcized? Let him not recover his gland” (Corinthians, I., vii., 18). Celsus, De Medicina, VII., ch. 25: “If the gland is bare, and it is desired for convenience sake to recover it, this can be effected, but more easily with a child, than with a grown man, more easily with the man born so, than with the man who has been circumcized after the custom of certain people. After having explained the method of cure applicable to men, with whom it is a natural accident,” Celsus continues: “With people that have been circumcized, the skin must be detached behind the crown of the gland. This operation is not very painful as the prepuce being loosened, you can draw it with the hand back to the pubis without any loss of blood.

Then the loosened integument is drawn once more over and beyond the gland. This done the verge is dipped frequently into cold water, and then covered with a plaster, which has a strong tendency to minimize inflammation. As soon as it is quite free from inflammation, the verge is to be bandaged from the pubis to the annular incision; the skin is then drawn over the gland, but kept separate from it by a plaster. In this way the lower part of the skin grows on again, while the upper part heals without adhering.” From this passage it would appear that at the time of Celsus the method of laying bare the gland which afterwards prevailed with the Jews was not discovered yet, by which, according to Buxtorf (Dictionnaire Talmudique), after the prepuce has been cut away, the circumcisor takes hold of the remaining skin between the thin edges of his thumb nails, and draws it forcibly back. If this practice had been customary it would have been superfluous to separate the prepuce with the scalpel. I conjecture from this, that the Jews were called recutiti from having this skin of the gland drawn back, which, not being done, the circumcision was not considered complete; but Celsus makes me doubt this.