The last-named motive for circumcision, although, in the passage quoted at the beginning of this section, it has been stamped with the approval of the same high authority, needs but transient allusion. It is _a priori_ probable that congenital phimosis prolonged into adult life renders the subject thereof somewhat more likely to develop local malignant disease than any one not so circumstanced; the resulting attacks of inflammation and of unhealthy ulceration, &c., may be naturally expected to lead to the growth of papillomata, as well as to maintain a chronic condition of lowered vitality. But the comparative rarity of epithelioma in this particular locality would deprive the allegation, even if this were positively established as an indisputable fact, of any weight as an argument for the removal of the prepuce. Moreover, it is obviously a reason not for the routine performance of circumcision, but for the relief of phimosis; by whatever means attempted or proposed. FOOTNOTES: [11] In Druitt's _Surgeon's Vade-Mecum_, 9th edition, p. 662, are the notes of a case of 'congenital phimosis of the tightest kind' in an adult of twenty-three. Circumcision was threatened; but the affection readily yielded to the injection of warm water daily. There are probably many similar. [12] Dr. Asher (_op. cit._) does not disapprove of circumcision, but his evidently strong religious bias, and the fact that his whole work is composed from an ecclesiastical point of view, with the express sanction and co-operation of ecclesiastical dignitaries, constitutes him a far from independent (negative) witness.