s contents, the prepuce became a superfluity; not only a superfluity,
but, now that its natural office had been replaced by the perineal
cloth, it actually began to be a nuisance, as its former free contact
with the air had retained it in a state of vigorous and
disease-resisting health which was now fast departing. As Montesquieu
observes, in the causes that led to the decline and fall of the Roman
Empire, those seasons of trials, tribulations, and struggle for
existence are those of health and progress and healthy life, and the
periods of luxury and idleness are those of degeneracy and decay. So
with the prepuce, the luxury and idleness, voluptuousness and consequent
feasting incident to its being supplanted in its original functions by
the perineal cloth, which left it thenceforth unemployed, led it in the
pathway of disease and death. This first innovation in civilization was
to the prepuce the beginning of its decay and fall. Like Belshazzar in
his great banquet-hall in ancient Babylon, the prepuce might have read
the hand-writing on the wall, "_Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin_," and
foreseen the gory end that awaited it. Like to other human affairs,
however, even in his fallen estate a kind word can be said for the
prepuce. Puzey, of Liverpool, has found it of extreme value, and even
unequaled by any other part of the body, for furnishing skin-grafts,[81]
these grafts showing a vitality that is simply phenomenal, considering
the laxity of its tissues and its seemingly adipose character. There is
no doubt, however, that for skin-transplanting there is nothing superior
to the plants offered by the prepuce of a boy, and where any large
surface is to be covered this should undoubtedly be chosen, as offering
the greatest and quickest success and the least chances of failure.
This is really the only disadvantage that can be charged against
circumcision, as in a strictly circumcised community they would be
debarred from this great advantage. An uncircumcised individual could be
procured, however, to supply the deficiency. It is related that in the
latter part of 1890, a Knight Templar, in Cincinnati, required a great
supply of grafts or skin-plants to cover a largely-denuded surface, and
that the whole of his Commandery chivalrously and generously supplied
the needed skin-plants in a body. A few healthy prepuces would have been
more efficacious. In advising the use of the prepuce for these purposes
it must not be overlooked th