“The history of the operation is involved in obscurity; that it was secretly inculcated as one of those gloomy rites which the female proselyte had to undergo, as a preliminary measure, prior to her initiation into those dread mythological creeds, which, in Egypt and the adjoining countries were swathed in the folds of an allegorical and almost impenetrable mysticism, is the most likely inference.” _Eventually_ the progressive decay of the religious institutions, gradually led to its promulgation and practice among the masses of the people; for the _priests_, who, independent of their scientific attainments, were also well versed in medicine, might have advocated its use both in a moral and hygienic point of view, as conducive to the welfare of the female population. I have been led into this digression by reflecting over the barbarous and unphilosophical meddling of certain practitioners of our metropolis who are, in effect, degrading our practice of surgery to the level of that of the savages we have just described, without possessing the same claim to our consideration on the score of ignorance, barbarism, and superstition. The modern antic yclept “_clitoridectomy_” (to which I refer), is, as the “Lancet” says, “a proceeding which, if it be _useless_, is a _lamentable mistake_, and if it be _unnecessary_, _a cruel outrage_.” The next proposition we may fairly look for will be to imitate still further the customs of these Western Africans who, in certain tribes, whenever a girl shows any very strong indication of sexual feeling (before she is betrothed), at once proceed to produce an obliteration of her vagina by the intense inflammatory action set up by the forcible introduction of a mass of the “capsicum fructescens,” or bird pepper—to my mind not one shade more inhuman or barbarous than unsexing a woman for ever, upon an assumption which grossly libels our female population. The position taken by the early Christians in reference to the practice of circumcision was decidedly antagonistic, so far as any value, in a _religious_ point of view, should be ascribed to it; nevertheless, their apostles and teachers permitted it to continue, at the discretion or inclination of those who chose to submit to it. It is an interesting fact to note that the Copts, whose Christianity dates back from the persecution of Diocletian (called the era of martyrs) in 303, and the Abyssinian Christians, who also reckon from the fourth century, adopt the custom to this day, from a belief that it gives them a further chance of entering Paradise, beyond the baptism they receive as Christians. It is also singular that these sects accept several other doctrines and precepts of the Mohammedans and Jews, among whom they dwell.