I have failed to find any statistics proving that the circumcised masturbate less frequently, or are more virtuous than others; and the exposure of the tender skin to friction of clothing &c., tends to keep up a state of abnormal excitement during the early years of life. 'Where doctors differ, who shall decide?' And in face, therefore, of such directly contradictory opinions from professional witnesses, it is difficult to believe that ablation of the prepuce is of material avail, either in precluding masturbation, or in promoting the subsequent chastity of the adult individual. On the third of the reasons assigned for advocating circumcision--the prevention of venereal disease when manhood is attained--Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson, whose testimony cannot but receive considerable weight, remarks that chancres are rare in the Jew. The observation has not been controverted; but must be received with a certain amount of hesitancy, in consequence of an evident bias in favour of radical measures of operative treatment. It seems rather to need confirmation by surgeons of the Jewish race, practising especially among their co-religionists. The present writer has been unable to discover any evidence in support from such a quarter. The authority last cited points out that cicatricial tissue is of all others least resistent to infection; and in the writer's own confessedly few opportunities for research in this particular field the number of Jews who have displayed remote but unmistakable indications of previous syphilitic taint has not appeared small. It is not improbable that a Hunterian sore developed upon scar-tissue, or upon the hardened integument of a denuded glans, would be far more trivial in character, more transient, less productive of inconvenience, and less easily recognisable, than the same in a normal state of the parts; the after-effects being, of course, identical. Such primary lesions in a people notoriously rather negligent of their person would seldom come under the notice of the medical practitioner. So, failing further evidence, the provisional verdict upon this question must be the Scotch one, 'Not proven.' But even if the above assertion be accepted in respect of true syphilis, it assuredly fails to hold good with reference to other varieties of venereal disease. Thus Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson's oft-quoted statistics[15] (_Medical Times and Gazette_, December 1, 1885), in his own words, 'prove that, though in proportion of nearly a third to the other patients, they (Jews) furnish nearly half the cases of gonorrhoea.'