[8] _Ibid._, n. 69. [9] _Theol. Moral._ vol. vii. Suarez defines mutilation thus: "Mutilare significat proprie membrum aliquod abscindere"[10]--to mutilate means, strictly speaking, to cut off any member. He holds with Cajetan that an important part of a member is in itself equivalent to a member. A reason he offers for his opinion is that a eunuch is enumerated among those who are canonically mutilated, but the eunuch, he tells us, "does not lack any member which in itself has a function in the body independent of all other organs." This is not true. The testicles, which the eunuch lacks, have two distinct functions, independent of other organs--they make the spermatozoa and an important internal glandular secretion. These facts were not known in Suarez's time (1548-1617). Suarez adds this remark: "There can be a grave sin in a marring [_diminutio_] of any chief member, although there may be no grave mutilation; as, for example, to cut off a part of a finger is undoubtedly a mortal sin, yet, in the opinion of all moralists, it is not enough to cause irregularity." [10] _De Censuris_, etc., disp. 44, sec. 2, 2. St. Alphonsus Liguori defines mutilation thus: "Mutilation here signifies that some principal member be separated from the body; that is, a part of the body that has in itself a distinct function, as a foot, hand, eye, ear, etc."[11] He says[12] canonical irregularity as a punishment is not incurred by a person who cuts off another man's finger, thumb, lips, nose, auricle, or who knocks out teeth, because these are supposed by canonists not to be properly members of the body, but parts of members. To blind a man in one eye is not enough to cause canonical irregularity; the eye must be taken out.[13] All these injuries are of course mutilations in the moral sense of the term. To blind a man without removing the eye, to cut out his spleen in the treatment of Banti's disease, to remove a woman's ovary or uterus, to cut off part of the point of a finger, to crop the top of an auricle, to knock out a tooth, and any other permanent marring of the body, even to cause an unsightly scar across the face, are all mutilations in the moral sense of the term. A physician, midwife, nurse, or parent who neglects an infant's eyes, and so permits ophthalmia neonatorum to blind the child, is guilty of grave mutilation. In the year 1914, in the Chicago schools, 45,176 children were found suffering from various defects, and 35,425 were advised by the examining physicians to seek treatment; in each of these cases the parents were informed of the nature of the disease and the necessity for treatment, but only 40 per cent. of the parents paid any attention to the notices. Of 5754 cases of diseased tonsils, which are likely to affect the heart permanently, only 4 per cent. were treated; of 1254 cases of discharging ears only 10 per cent. were treated, although such a condition may go on to deafness if not attended to.