The ancient plan, according to which the operator received in his mouth (previously filled with wine) the extremity of the lacerated member, is now wholly or in great part abolished among the Jewish community; it being found that both syphilis and tuberculosis were thus communicated to the infant.[17] The _Lancet_ of October 1, 1870, quotes from the _Wiener Med. Presse_ the particulars of two cases, reported by Dr. Schwartz, of boys circumcised at the usual period; who subsequently died from phlegmonous inflammation and sloughing of the part, one five and the other twenty-five days subsequently to the operation. In the same periodical for December 5, 1874, may be found allusion to the experience of Dr. Kohn, himself a Jew; who stated at a medical society in Vienna, that during a practice of thirty-five years he had known six deaths from this source (_Allg. Wiener Med. Zeit._ November 17, 1874). He himself had thus lost a child of his own. However such fatality may be attributed to the neglect of all hygienic rules among the poorer classes of Jews; it can hardly be doubted that, under even the most favourable conditions, septic poisoning or uncontrollable hæmorrhage _must_ occasionally happen, albeit extremely rare; and this whether the operation has been performed from ritual or from surgical motives. To the absence of such cases reported in medical literature, too much weight must not be attributed.[18] It is rather upon the minor consequences, immediate or subsequent, that those who object to the practice have founded their opposition; and of such there has been no lack, especially among medical men who have been themselves Jews, and who have thus necessarily enjoyed the fullest experience of its effects. Thus the _Lancet_ of December 5, 1874, mentions a pamphlet by Dr. Levit, demonstrating the evils of the custom. He speaks of the premature beginning of sexual excitement in boys deprived of their prepuce, and the disposition to onanism so common to Eastern nations; he regards circumcision as a criminal manipulation; and calls upon the medical profession to oppose the practice, even at the risk of losing favour at the hands of the Jewish families they attend. And his arguments are effectually sustained by Dr. Kohn. Dr. Schwartz, in recording the fatal cases above quoted, 'deprecates the custom with great warmth, and expresses the wish that it may be laid aside.' Mr. R. W. Parker (_British Medical Journal_, July 19, 1879) refers to a child (one of a family of bleeders) who, being circumcised, nearly bled to death. He also says: 'Diffuse cellulitis of the penis is not an uncommon complication after this operation in unhealthy, ill-fed, and badly-cared-for children.'