esting on the holy Bible, while taking an
oath, so the ancient Egyptian raised his circumcised phallus in token of
sincerity,--a practice not altogether forgotten by his descendants of
to-day. It was partly this custom of swearing, or of affirming, with the
hand under the thigh, by the early Israelites, that caused many to
believe that their circumcision was borrowed from the Egyptians,
especially by M. Voltaire, who insists that it was the phallus that the
hand was placed on, and that the translation has not the proper meaning,
as given in the Bible.

Among the Arabs it was the practice to circumcise at the age of thirteen
years, this being the age of Ishmael at his circumcision by his father,
Abraham. The Arabs practiced circumcision long before the advent of
Mohammed, who was himself circumcised. Pococke mentions a tradition
which ascribes to the prophet the words, "Circumcision is an ordinance
for men, and honorable in women." Although the rite is not a religious
imposition, it has spread wherever the crescent has carried the
Mohammedan faith. Uncircumcision and impurity are to a Mohammedan
synonymous terms. Like the Abyssinians, the Arabs also practice female
circumcision,--an operation not without considerable medical import, as
will be explained in the medical part of the work. This practice is also
common in Ethopia. Some authorities argue, from this association of
female circumcision among the Southern Arabs, Ethiopians, and
Abyssinians, that they did not derive their rite from the Israelites;
but there is not much room for doubt but that the operation came down to
the Arabians from Abraham through his son Ishmael. Considering the
occupancy of Syria, Arabia, and Egypt by the French, and the intercourse
with these countries by the British, it is surprising that the
profession in the early part of the present century had not full
information regarding the nature and objects of female circumcision as
practiced in these countries. Delpesh observes, in relation to the
Oriental practice, that his information was too vague to determine
whether it was the nymphae or the clitoris that were removed, or whether
it was only practiced in cases of abnormal elongations of these parts.
M. Murat, however, writes at length on the subject, very intelligently,
as well as Lonyer-Villermay, who, writing in the same work with Delpesh,
thinks it is certainly the clitoris that is removed.[12] In Arabia, the
trade or profession of a _re