, performed with ordinary care, could
hardly be followed up with any more serious results than can be
controlled with the application of a little acidulated water. The second
act, or _Periah_, the act of laceration, he looks upon as one that calls
for coolness, judgment, and skill, as the membrane should only be torn
so far and no farther, the thin, inner fold of the prepuce being
vascular only in the sulcus back of the corona and at its lower
attachment, where it forms the frenum, or bridle; any carelessness or
over-anxiety on the part of the operator in tearing this membrane too
far back results in danger of haemorrhage; especially is this part of the
operation liable to be badly done if the inner preputial fold is thick
and resisting, as in that case undue force may carry the laceration back
into the vascular tissue. The means suggested by Dr. Epstein to arrest
haemorrhage are those ordinarily used in haemorrhagic cases, such as will
be given presently. The doctor regrets that the operators are not as
they should be, physicians, and that, when _mohels_ are employed,
persons are not sufficiently exacting as to their qualifications.[64]

In France the government has managed to secure more safety in the
operation. By a royal decree of date of May 25, 1845, in compliance with
a desire expressed by the Hebrew Consistory, it was ordered that no one
should exercise the functions of a _mohel_ or of _schohet_, without
being duly authorized to perform said functions by the Consistory of the
Circonscription; and that all _mohels_ and _schohets_ shall be governed
in the exercise of their functions by the Departmental Consistory and
the General Consistory. By virtue of this decree a regulation was passed
by the Consistories on the 12th of July, 1854, ordering that thereafter
circumcision should only be performed in a rational manner, and by a
properly qualified person. Suction was likewise abolished, and the wound
directed to be sponged with wine and water. This decree and the
resulting regulations have been of the greatest benefit to the French
Israelites, and some attention to the matter would not be amiss in the
United States.

This reformation has met with the approval of the leading French Jews,
whose General Consistory decided that suction was not necessarily a part
of the religious rite, and that, as it was undoubtedly introduced into
the rite on the days of primitive surgery, it was perfectly rational to
suppress this op