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| R OUTINE C IRCUMCISION ? An important question for many people is whether routine male circumcision should be practiced or not. Apart from ethnological or religious reasons, I believe the routine practice on boys who have nothing wrong with them is pointless. In an information centred culture it would be much more sensible to routinely check all boys to determine whether a boy needed treatment, and if so, which sort of correction he required. Anthropology The text continues with a study of the unsolved mystery of the origin of the practice of routine male circumcision. The following theory has never been considered by anthropologists. The Theory in Short The human mind in the late Stone Age, was certainly very different to ours, however their bodies were similar. The possibility is that men in those days also had unpleasant experiences with these conditions. Such men could have had the personal conviction (or deluded fanaticism), to introduce this measure, in order to prevent similar experiences happening to any other member of their family. The anthropology text is 2,150 words long. It is available on request or through internet. |  | Appendix a
A NCIENT M ETHODS OF O PERATION
Full marks for creativity goes to New Guinea, "Long pendulous foreskins are apparently a thing of beauty for some tribes in New Guinea who deliberately stretch them by suspending weights from the penis"36 . There is the possibility of "removing some of the foreskin and leaving the remainder as a flap, as practiced by the Maasai and Kikuyu of East Africa, or cutting the foreskin away but retaining it as two flaps, as practiced by the Tikopia of Polynesia"37 . "The most rudimentary form of male circumcision is a simple gash of the prepuce", "the simple process of tearing the prepuce with the fingers", or "a wedge-shaped piece is excised"38 . It is worth noting that "In some Turkish families the foreskin is retracted straight away after birth, and this is done periodically, in order to prevent adhesions"39 . In addition at least two cultures perform an incision of the frenulum, "the inhabitants of the Loyalty Islands . . and, . . on Tahiti"s40 . |
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