Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys--_i.e._, one-half the human race--are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently, that every male child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which Nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human body. The erroneous nature of such a practice is shown by the fact that, although this custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in hot climates) has been carried on for many hundred generations, yet Nature continues to protect her children by reproducing the valuable protection in man and all the higher animals, regardless of impotent surgical interference. Appeals to the fears of uninstructed parents on the grounds of cleanliness or of hardening the part are entirely fallacious and unsupported by evidence. It is a physiological fact that the natural lubricating secretion of every healthy part is beneficial, not injurious, to the part thus protected, and that no attempt to render a sensitive part insensitive is either practicable or justifiable. The protection which Nature affords to these parts is an aid to physical purity, by affording necessary protection against constant external contact of a part which necessarily remains keenly sensitive; and bad habits in boys and girls cannot be prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and physical education. The plea that this unnatural practice will lessen the risk of infection to the sensualist in promiscuous intercourse is not one that our honourable profession will support. Parents, therefore, should be warned that this ugly mutilation of their children involves serious danger, both to their physical and moral health. * * * * * It is a fact which deserves serious consideration that many ignorant women purposely resort to vicious sexual manipulation to soothe their fractious infants. The superintendent of a large prison for women informed me that this was a common practice, and one most difficult, even impossible entirely to break up. Medical observation proves that such injury to infancy is not confined to the lower or to the criminal classes. The habits formed by unrefined or exposed women are brought by servants into our homes. The ignorance or viciousness of nurses, often veiled by a respectable demeanour, has injured and even destroyed the children of many a well-to-do nursery.