CHAPTER XII.
Hebraic Circumcision.

The first mention that we meet concerning circumcision is in Genesis. It is the command of God to Abraham; in establishing the covenant with him, He said to him: “This is my covenant, which ye shall keep between me and you, and thy seed after thee: every man-child among you shall be circumcised. And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you” (Gen. xvii, 10, 11). It was also ordained that this should be extended to servants belonging to Abraham and his seed, as well as to their own children; and that in case of children it should be done on the eighth day after birth.[54] This was appointed as an ordinance of perpetual obligation on the Hebraic family, and its neglect or omission entailed being cut off from the people (12, 14). In compliance with this ordinance, Abraham, although in his ninety-ninth year, circumcised himself and all his slaves, as well as his son Ishmael. Slaves by purchase were circumcised,[55] as were any strangers, who were also circumcised before being allowed to partake of the passover or to become Jewish citizens. It was to be observed by all heathens who became converted to the Jewish faith. During the wanderings in the wilderness circumcision was not practiced, but Joshua caused all to be circumcised before they entered the promised land.[56]

The old Hebrews strictly followed the injunction to circumcise on the eighth day, and of such importance in a religious sense was this rite in their estimation that even when the eighth day fell on the Sabbath the eighth day ordinance was observed. The ordinance, however, was not blindly arbitrary, as rules were laid down for exception. For instance, whenever a family had lost two children through circumcision it did not become obligatory on that family to circumcise the third child, who was however considered as entitled to all the benefits of the congregation or of the Hebraic religion, just the same as if he had been circumcised. Again, Maimonides, or Moussa Ben Maimon, a celebrated physician and rabbi, born in Cordova in the year 1135 A.D., among his works on medicine, has left directions in regard to circumcision which have been the guides of the mohels. Among the Hebraic physicians it was considered that the child partook of the constitutional strength or feebleness of the mother; hence the rule above mentioned, in regard to exemption to circumcision, only was in operation when the two who had formerly died belonged to the same mother as the third one, who would thereby be exempt; but if the two children had belonged to another woman, and this third child of the father was not from the same mother, the rule did not exempt. The third child of the mother who had previously lost two infants at the rite was, however, to be circumcised when arrived at adult age, provided no further counter-indication occurred. The opinion that the mother gave the constitution to the child was promulgated by Maimonides and became general.

The eighth day is believed to refer to the eighth day after full term; thus, a child born prematurely is not supposed to be circumcised until eight days after it would have reached its full term, and only then if its general good condition is settled. Maimonides looked upon infantile jaundice, general debility, and marasmus as contra-indications to the performance of the rite; any erysipelatous inflammation, ophthalmia, anæmia, eruption of any kind, fever, tendency to convulsive movements—in fact, any observable departure from normal health should be allowed to pass before performing the rite. Aside from these general conditions that denoted that the operation was contra-indicated, the local condition of the organ itself also was to be examined, and if certain conditions existed the operation was to be put off. These conditions consisted in any irritation or red appearance of the prepuce, due to either inflammation or to the irritative action of the sebaceous matter underneath the prepuce, the acrid nature of these secretions being at times sufficiently virulent to produce an ulceration, even in the newborn.[57]

Among the Hebrews themselves there are those who do not look upon circumcision in a favorable light, but on something that has served its time in its own day, and within the past year a proselyte has been accepted into one of the New York synagogues without previous or subsequent circumcision, these reformed Jews looking upon adult circumcision as too painful an operation to be gone through, as they claim, unnecessarily. It must be said, however, that these persons look upon circumcision purely in a sacramental light, and simply as an arbitrary ordinance of God in the remote ages of antiquity, but which in the present century has not enough practical significance to warrant its performance on the occasion of an adult joining the congregation. These persons look upon it, as has been said, in a purely theological light, and ignore any and all considerations of hygiene in connection with it, claiming that if it is a simple matter of hygiene, then it is not a sacrament, and that, if it is sacramental, then the subject of hygiene has nothing whatever to do with it. The force of their reasoning and logic is very obscure and clouded, to say the least. The covenant either exists or it does not; to do away with one ordinance in any arbitrary manner is to gradually begin to crumble down the whole fabric of Judaism; for when exceptions are begun, one tenet as well as another is liable to topple over. If the rite is a sacrament, then it should be performed on all, and a proselyte should not be admitted without being circumcised, and, if a hygienic measure only, the same rule holds. These Jews evidently ignore the rationalism that governed the promulgation of the Mosaic law, and its recognition of the inseparability of the moral from the physical nature of man.

Montaigne has left us a description of the performance of the rite, as witnessed by him in the city of Rome in the sixteenth century. He relates it as follows: “On the thirtieth of January was witnessed one of the most ancient ceremonies of religion practiced by mankind, this being the circumcision of the Jews. This is performed at the dwelling, the most commodious chamber being chosen for the occasion. At this particular time, by reason of the incommodity of the house, the rite was performed at the door of the domicile. The godfather sat himself on a table, with a pillow on his lap. The godmother then brought the child, after which she retired. The godfather then undressed the child’s lower part so as to expose his person, while the operator and his assistant began to chant hymns. This operation lasts at least a quarter of an hour. The operator may or may not be a rabbi, as it is considered a great blessing to perform this operation; so that it follows that many are found who are anxious to exercise their faculty in this regard, there being a tradition that those who have circumcised a certain number do not suffer putrefaction in their mouth, nor does their mouth become food for worms after death; so that it often happens that they make presents of value to the child for the privilege of operating upon it. On the same table on which the godfather is seated all the required instruments and apparatus are placed, while an assistant stands by with a flask of wine and a glass. A warming-pan full of coals is on the floor, at which the operator warms his hands. The child being now ready, with its head toward the godfather, the operator, seizing the member, draws the foreskin toward him with one hand, while with the fingers of the other he pushes back the glans; he then places a silver instrument, which fixes the skin, and which at the same time holds back the glans so that the knife may not cut it. The foreskin is then cut off and buried in the little basin of soil that forms one of the appurtenances to the operation. The operator then tears with his nails the skin which lies on the glans, which he turns back over the body of the member. This seems the hardest and most painful part of the operation, which, however, does not seem dangerous, as in four or five days the wound has healed. The crying of the child resembles that of an infant undergoing baptism. No sooner is the glans uncovered than the operator takes a mouthful of wine; he then places the glans in his mouth and sucks the blood out of it; this he repeats three times. This done, he applies a powder of dragons’ blood, with which he covers up all the wound, the parts being then done up in expressly-cut bandages. He is then given a glass of wine, over which he says some prayers; of this he takes a mouthful, and, after moistening his fingers in the same, he applies the wine three times to the child’s mouth. The wine is then sent to the mother and the women, who are in some other apartment, who all take a sip. An assistant then takes a silver instrument, pierced with little holes like a small strainer, which he first applies to the nose of the officiating minister, then to that of the child, and afterward to the nose of the godfather.”[58] The above description of the performance of the rite in the sixteenth century answers to the method of its performance as was witnessed some years ago in France.

In the “Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Cyclopædia” of Drs. McClintock and Strong the following description of the rite, as taking place in our modern synagogues, is given:—

“The ceremony of circumcision, as practiced by the Jews in our own times, is thus: If the eighth day happens to be on the Sabbath, the ceremony must be performed on that day, notwithstanding its sanctity. When a male child is born the godfather is chosen from amongst his relatives or near friends; and if the party is not in circumstances to bear the expenses, which are considerable (for after the ceremony is performed a breakfast is provided, even amongst the poor, in a luxurious manner), it is usual for the poor to get one amongst the richer, who accepts the office, and becomes a godfather. There are also societies formed amongst them for the purpose of defraying the expenses, and every Jew receives the benefit if his child is born in wedlock.

“The ceremony is performed in the following manner, in general: The circumciser being provided with a very sharp instrument called the circumcising-knife, plasters, cummin-seeds to dress the wound, proper bandages, etc., the child is brought to the door of the synagogue by the godmother, when the godfather receives it from her and carries it into the synagogue, where a large chair with two seats is placed; the one is for the godfather to sit upon, the other is called the seat of Elijah the Prophet, who is called the angel or messenger of the covenant. As soon as the godfather enters with the child, the congregation say, ‘Blessed is he that cometh to be circumcised, and enter into the covenant on the eighth day.’ The godfather being seated, and the child placed on a cushion in his lap, the circumciser performs the operation, and, holding the child in his arms, takes a glass of wine into his right hand, and says as follows: ‘Blessed be Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe, Creator of the fruit of the vine! Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God! who hath sanctified His beloved from the womb, and ordained an ordinance for His kindred, and sealed His descendants with the mark of His holy covenant; therefore, for the merits of this, O living God! our rock and inheritance, command the deliverance of the beloved of our kindred from the pit, for the sake of the covenant which He hath put in our flesh. Blessed art Thou, O Lord, the Maker of the Covenant! our God, and the God of our fathers! Preserve this child to his father and mother, and his name shall be called in Israel, A, the son of B. Let the father rejoice in those that go forth from his loins, and let his mother be glad in the fruit of her womb, as it is written: “Thy father and mother shall rejoice, and they that begat thee shall be glad.”’ The father of the child then says the following grace: ‘Blessed art Thou, O Lord our God, King of the Universe! who hath sanctified us with His commandments, and commanded us to enter into the covenant of our holy father, Abraham.’ The congregation answer: ‘As he hath entered into the law, the canopy, and the good and virtuous deeds.’”[59]

CHAPTER XIII.
Mezizah, the Fourth or Objectionable Act of Suction.

Biblical and rabbinical traditions throw no light on the origin of the details of the operation as now performed. That it was anciently performed with a knife of stone is certain; an event common in its general observance, and which seems to have pervaded all nations or races, howsoever remote or scattered, that it has induced Tylor[60] to ascribe the origin of the rite to the stone age. We are told that when Moses was returning to the land of Egypt he had neglected circumcising his son, and that because of that neglect he nearly lost his son’s life; his wife, Zipporah, the daughter of the Midian king and priest, Jethro, seeing the danger and knowing its cause, took her little son Gershom and circumcised him with a stone knife, and offered the foreskin to God as a peace-offering. Just where the wine was first used we are not told. Wine, however, was an emblem of thanksgiving, and, being one of the fruits of the earth, was considered an acceptable offering to God. It has since, in some form or other, either as wine or as the representative of either divine or human blood, been used in both the Catholic and Protestant Churches in their ceremonials or vicarious sacrifices, or imitations of old customs. Circumcision was by many connected with a blood sacrifice; it was so suggested by the words of Zipporah at the circumcision of Gershom: “And Zipporah, his Midianitish wife, took up a sharp stone and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet and said, ‘Surely a Khathan of blood art thou to me.’” Much speculation has followed the use of this word Khathan, which, in the ordinary Arabian, may mean either husband or son-in-law; it also means a newly-admitted member of a family; a similar word means “to provide a wedding feast,” and one other word from the same root and branch means “to give or receive a daughter in marriage.” In our own day, the mohel, or ministerial circumciser, makes it a practice to draw a little blood from the skin of such as are presented for the rite, but whom nature has not furnished with sufficient foreskin for the operation. The application, thrice repeated, of the blood and wine to the lips of the child, is probably used as a sign of the sealing of the compact. Wine is mentioned in connection with the High-Priest Melchisedeck as the wine of thanksgiving at his meeting with Abraham; wine was presented to Aaron by the angel, who, giving him a crystal glassful of good wine, said to him: “Aaron, drink of this wine which the Lord sends you as a pledge of good news.” Originally, circumcision must have consisted of the simple removal of the foreskin, and the elaboration of the ceremonial details must have been a subsequent occurrence; persons wounding their fingers will instinctively carry them to their mouth, and it may be that the suction practiced by the Hebrews had its origin in this natural hæmostatic suggestion. Wine as a hæmostatic and as an emblem of thanksgiving and an acceptable offering naturally came in as an accessory.

This practice—which, in the old, patriarchal days of the simple shepherds, when men only lived on the flesh of their own flocks, their diet, however, consisting mostly of cakes of flour, milk, honey, a few herbs, or the flesh of the goat or sheep—could not have been as objectionable as it is at the present day, with blood and secretions in a continued ferment through diet and habits. Man, living in the open air of Armenia, Palestine, or Arabia, sleeping in the open tents of our Biblical forefathers, living on the simple diet of a shepherd’s camp, with the abstemiousness that those climates naturally induce in man, could not help but be healthy. In those early days, when neither passion, anxiety, nor worry disturbed either digestion or sleep, man had no vitiated secretions, wine was then a rarity, and water was the drink. One of the early patriarchs on such diet would have furnished a dainty and savory dish to the most fastidious cannibal, who is now tormented by the komerborg kawan, this being a term used by the Australian cannibals to designate the peculiar nausea that is induced in them when they recklessly eat of white man,[61]—something which they do not experience from feasting on the savages who live on the simple diet of a pastoral tribe. This primitive gastronomic science in regard to cannibalism even reached such a pitch of refinement that, as has been previously mentioned, some tribes even resorted to emasculation to improve the flavor of the animal juices, which by this procedure became less acrid. The Arabian and Oriental traditions bring us down tales of how, on the same principles, human beings intended to grace the festive platter were fed exclusively on rice. The salivary and buccal secretions, under such a simple diet as that indulged in by our Biblical forefathers, become bland and harmless; not only harmless, but even antiseptic and positively beneficial, acting on the same principle as local applications of pepsin. So that the practice, at the time of the patriarchs and in their own family, of this part of the rite could not have offered the same objection that it does at the present day. The modern house-dweller, living on a mixed diet and in a climate that induces him to eat grossly, both as to quality and quantity, partaking more or less of vinous, spirituous, or fermented liquors, as well as indulging in tobacco, is quite another being from the Arabian or Armenian shepherd of former days. Business anxieties and worry also have a very pronounced effect; so that, with the change in the conditions of man and the inception and multiplication of diseased conditions, as well as the creation of constitutional and transmissible diseases, this practice of suction should have been stopped.

Intelligent rabbis, devoted to their religion, are necessarily prone to defend any of the details in its ceremonials that age and practice have sanctioned, and even some of the later writings of Israelism seem to make the mezizah, or suction, a necessary and ceremonial detail. In the “Guimara,” composed in the fifth century, Rabbi Rav Popè uses these words: “All operators who fail to use suction, and thereby cause the infant to run any risk, should be destituted of the right to perform the ceremony.” In the “Mishna” it says, “It is permitted on the Sabbath to do all that is necessary to perform circumcision, excision, denudation, and suction.” The “Mishna” was composed during the second century. The celebrated Maimonides lent it his sanction, as in his work on circumcision he advises suction, to avoid any subsequent danger. Our modern Israelites are supposed, as a rule, to have taken their authority, aside from previous usage and custom, from the “Beth Yosef,” which was written by Joseph Karo, and subsequently annotated by the Rabbi Israel Isserth. In all of these sanctions, however, there is no reason expressed why it should be performed.[62] Maimonides undoubtedly looked upon this act as having a decided tendency or action in depleting the immediate vessels in the vicinity of the cut surface, and that the consequent constriction in their calibre would prevent any future hæmorrhage. That this is the natural result of suction is a fact readily understood by any modern physician. The depletion of the vessel for some distance in its length, with the contraction in the coat that follows, is certainly a better preventive to consequent hæmorrhage than the simple application of any styptic preparation that can only be placed at the mouth of the vessel, but which leaves its calibre intact. Hot water, or an extreme degree of cold, will answer to produce this contraction and depletion, but there is here a local physical reaction that is more liable to occur than when the contraction has taken place naturally, as when induced by depletion, instead of by the stimulus of either heat or cold. So that if, in the light of modern civilization and changed conditions of mankind, and the existence of diseases which formerly did not exist, we are now convinced that suction is dangerous, we should not judge the ancients too hastily or rashly for having adopted the custom, as it is certainly not without some scientific merit; although, authorities are not wanting who hold that suction or depletion increases the danger of hæmorrhage.

It can be understood that the results of suction would be in some measure analogous to those left by the application of an Esmarch bandage on a limb. The ancients, performing the operation with rude implements and having no hæmostatic remedies or appliances, naturally followed the best means at their command; they evidently feared hæmorrhage, and their rule in regard to exemption shows us that they recognized the existence of hæmorrhagic diathesis or other transmissible peculiarities of constitution. This same fear of hæmorrhage probably suggested the second step of the operation being performed, as it is by laceration instead of by cutting instruments, showing in this an evident desire to limit the cutting part of the operation to as small a limit as possible. Against an infant who has decided hæmorrhagic tendency, we are about as helpless as were the ancient Hebrews, and, while the Turkish or some of the Arabian methods of performing the operation may be said in ordinary cases—by the application of cord and the consequent constriction—to limit the danger from subsequent hæmorrhage, still, in the hæmorrhagic diathesis this would not be of any avail; so, as already observed, we must not too rashly judge those old shepherds of the Armenian plains for adopting a practice which to them was calculated to avert subsequent dangers, or their descendants following in their footsteps, until having learned better, even if that practice is to us disgusting, primitive, and useless.

Cases occur,—happily not frequently,—of alarming and uncontrollable hæmorrhage. The following case is suggestive of the alarming extent and persistence that may attend one of those hæmorrhagic cases, even when recovery eventually takes place. It is reported by Dr. Sannanel in the Gazetta Toscana delle science medicale e fisiche of 1844. The case was that of a Jewish infant circumcised on the eighth day. Some hours after the operation the child was observed to be bleeding; the hæmmorrhage would only cease for a few moments, and then come on with increased force, and which proved rebellious to ordinary remedies. Dr. Sannanel was called during the night of the third day after the operation. A number of physicians had been in attendance, and neither ice, astringents, pressure, nor any usual hæmostatic means had had the least effect; cautery with nitrate of silver, sulphuric acid, and the actual cautery by means of heated iron were tried in succession, without any good results. Ten days passed in this manner, the hæmmorrhage only ceasing for a few moments at a time, and the child was nearly exsanguinated from the continued serous seepage and the paroxysmal hæmorrhages, when a lucky application of caustic potassa almost immediately stopped the hæmorrhage. This case was seen by nearly all the leading medical men of Leghorn, who lent their aid and counsel to save the little life. The case is interesting from the length of time it persisted, and that even after all the loss of blood and suffering that the little fellow endured he survived.[63]

Dr. Epstein, of Cincinnati, in a letter of March 29, 1872, to the Israelite of that city, mentions a nearly fatal case from hæmorrage after the rite of “Milah,” and gives the result of his experience in such cases. He argues that Hitouch or Hitooch alone, or the first step or cutting off of the prepuce, 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 hæmorrhage; 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 hæmorrhage are those ordinarily used in hæmorrhagic 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 operative accessory, now that that same science, in its enlightenment, pronounced it unsafe. The whole body of the Congregation did not tamely submit to what they considered an innovation, and from some of the mohels all possible resistance was opposed to prevent the abolishment of this part of the operation from becoming a law. So determined was this opposition in some instances that the Consistory of Paris found it necessary to impose on all the mohels an obligation, bound by an oath, that they would respect the law. Those who refused to take the obligation gave up their vocation.

The Grand Rabbi of Paris, at the time of this reformation, M. Ennery, was one of the most zealous supporters of the new departure. The influence of the French pervaded northward, and the mezizah was abolished in Brunswick, Dr. Solomon, a learned Hebrew of that State, being instrumental in having it done legally. The discussion of this subject, in 1845, had one very happy effect,—the supporters of the reformed idea of the rite issued a circular letter to all the leading continental surgeons and medical men asking for their opinion on several points in relation thereto, especially, however, on this part of the rite. The opinions of many of these will be referred to in the medical part of this work.

The after-treatment of the circumcised infant is governed more or less by local habits and the individual intelligence of the mohel and his experience. After turning back the inner fold of the prepuce, the parts are covered with a small, square bandage, with an aperture to admit the passage of the glans. This, and the subsequent small bandage of old linen, which is calculated to hold it in place, are slightly coated with a powder composed of lycopodium, with the slight addition, at times, of Monsel’s salts, alum-powder, or some vegetable astringent. Over these another compress is placed, to prevent the friction of the clothes of the infant or of the bedding. The infant then receives a final benediction, and the godmother then receives the child in her arms and carries it to its cot or crib. The operator generally visits the infant in the afternoon of the operation, and carefully inspects the dressings, to see that no hæmorrhage has supervened.

It is customary to place the child in a bath, either the same evening or on the following morning, the object of this being to remove and to facilitate the removal of the dressings, which are more or less saturated and clotted with blood. After the removal of these, the wound is redressed, as previously, except that some cerate—ointment of roses or some other mild ointment—is used. Some prefer the simple water dressing from beginning to end. Since the introduction of creasote, acid phénique, and carbolic acid, many mohels are in the practice of washing the parts with water impregnated with one of these before performing the operation, and using subsequently the same form of lotion at every dressing. In case of hæmorrhage there is an hæmostatic water or lotion, which has been long used by the German and Polish mohels with considerable success, and which, in ordinary cases, has been found to be all that was required. This water, called by the French “Mixture d’arguesbusade,” “Eau vulneraire spiriteuse de Theden,” and by the Germans as “Spritzwasser” and “Schusswasser,” is composed as follows:—

This mixture is well mixed and filtered, and is then kept in a tightly-stoppered vial.

Dr. Bergson uses a mixture composed of diluted sulphuric acid, 1 part; alcohol, 3 parts; honey, 2 parts; and 6 parts of wine vinegar.

Hæmostatic powders are also used by the Hebrews, being more conveniently kept or carried than the hæmostatic waters. In Russia and in Poland they are composed of decomposed or decayed hawthorn-wood powder and lycopodium. That of Berlin is composed of Armenian bole, red clay, dragons’ blood, powdered rose-leaves, powdered galls, and powdered subcarbonate of lead. In France a hæmostatic fluid, composed of dragons’ blood digested in turpentine, is in vogue. The Eau de Pagliari is also used; it is composed of a mixture of tincture of benzoin, 8 ounces; powdered alum, 1 pound; and 10 pounds of water, boiled together for six hours, and is considered a powerful styptic. In addition to these, burnt linen, spiders’ webs, starch-powder, powdered alum, and plaster-of-Paris powder are used by different mohels. Touching the bleeding points with a pointed pencil of nitrate of silver is also a practice understood by the Jewish circumcisers.

CHAPTER XIV.
What are the Benefits of Circumcision?

It may well be asked: What does the Jew receive in return for all the suffering that he inflicts through circumcision on himself and his little children? What is there to repay him or his for all the risks and annoyances, besides branding himself and his with an indestructible mark, which has been more than once the sign by which they have suffered persecution, spoliation, expatriation, and death? Are there any benefits enjoyed by the Jew that the uncircumcised does not enjoy in equal proportion?

The relative longevity between the Hebrew race and the Christian nations that dwell together under like climatic and political conditions indicates a stronger tenacity on the part of the Jewish part of the nations to life, a greatly less liability to disease, and a stronger resistance to epidemic, endemic, and accidental diseases. By some authorities it has been held that the occupations followed by the Jew are such as do not compel him to risk his life, as he neither follows any labor requiring any great and continued exertion, nor any that subjects him to any great exposure; that, as a rule, when in business, by some intuition he follows some branch that has neither anxiety, care, nor great chance of loss connected with it; that he does not follow any occupation that is attended with any risk of accident for either life or limb. Besides all these, it is also urged that in cities the careful inspection of their meat, and the peculiar social fabric of the family, the love and veneration for their aged, as well as their proverbial charity to their own poor and sick, and their provident habits and hygienic regulations imposed upon them by the Mosaic law, are all conditions that conspire to induce longevity.

That the Hebrew is generally found in such conditions as above described is undisputed; but it is questionable if all these conditions are necessarily such as are favorable to health and long life, and that, therefore, the longevity of the Jewish race cannot altogether be ascribed to the above conditions. Looking at the subject of occupation, if we consult Lombard, Thackrah, and the later works on the effects of occupation on life, we must admit that the Jew has no visible advantage in that regard, as he follows hardly any out-of-door occupation, being often in-doors in a confined and foul atmosphere. To those who have closely observed the race in this country,—coming as they do from the cold-wintered climates of Germany, Austria, or Poland, bringing with them the habit of living in small, close rooms, for the sake of economy and comfort,—it must be admitted that among the lower classes and the poorer of the race, their shops being connected, as they usually are, with their living-rooms, the toute ensemble is anything but conducive to a long life. Their anæmic and undeveloped physical condition and weak muscular organization are sufficient evidence that their surroundings are not calculated to improve health. In England, statistics sufficiently prove that the fisherman on the coast, exposed to all kinds of weather, is not as prone to disease as is his brother Englishman who deals out the groceries in his snug shop. Exercise has been held an important element in the factory of the long-lived. From the time of Hippocrates down to Cheyne, Rush, Hufeland, Tissot, Charcot, Humphry, and all authorities on the factors of old age, exercise has been looked upon as favoring long life. Exercise cannot be said to enter in any way as a factor in the longevity of the Jew; but, on the contrary, his in-door life is known to be very productive of phthisis in other races. His recreations are, as a rule, of the home social order. They visit and spend the time allotted to recreation in social intercourse, which their hospitality always insists on accompanying with a generous lunch, which, to say the least, is not an element that is conducive to either health or long life; for no people excel the Jew in home hospitality, and even among the poorer classes a stranger is never allowed to depart without some refreshment being offered him. Among the class better able to extend hospitality, social reunions and card parties, with lunches of fruits, cakes, cold meats and coffee, or wines, are among their regular occurrences. Their great affection for the family and for their youth and aged suggests these means of recreation, as then they are enjoyed by all alike; but, as observed, the hygiene of all this is very doubtful; it produces too much irregularity.

It is related that after the Roman conquest of Palestine many of the Jews, becoming more or less accustomed to Roman manners and customs, often joined in the games which the Romans held in imitation of the old Olympic games of the Grecians. Not to be ridiculed, many resorted to the practices described in a previous chapter, to efface all the marks of their circumcision, that they might enter the games with as much freedom as the Romans or other uncircumcised nations; so that the present aversion to out-of-door sports evinced by the Jew is not necessarily a racial trait; the persecutions and political inequality that until lately he has been made to suffer have driven him into retirement and seclusion. Although seeking neither converts nor political power and influence, he has been hunted down, massacred, and chased about as a dangerous beast. As the children of the great Rabbi Moses Mendelssohn asked of their father: “Is it a disgrace to be a Jew? Why do people throw stones at us and call us names?” It may well be asked, why? These actions have forced them into the social and retired habits for which they are noted; although it cannot be said that it is from a lack of spirit, as one of the Rothschilds is well known to have been present at the battle of Waterloo, where from a spot in the vicinity of the British right-centre he observed the events of the battle; and when, with the failure of Ney’s last desperate charge with the formidable battalions of the Old Guard, he saw the advance of the Prussians closing in on the French right, he galloped to the sea-shore, and, crossing the Channel in a frail boat, reached London twenty-four hours in advance of the news of the battle,[65] but long enough for him to clear several millions from off the panicky state of the money market. Marshal Massena, one of Napoleon’s bravest generals, the defender of Genoa and the hero of Wagram, was of Jewish origin.

Athletic sports are not of necessity conducive to long life, even if they are to temporary robust health; but there is no mistaking the fact that the sedentary and in-door life of the average Jew is a deteriorator to health and life, and especially among that class of families who are poor and keep no servant; from heredity and home education having adopted unhygienic customs, in which they have grown up,—in these a total disregard for all ventilation forms a part. Were an uncircumcised race so to live, scrofula and phthisis would be the inevitable result. This difference of results I have witnessed more than once as existing among the two races coming from the same European nationality, where their disregard to ordinary rules of hygiene, induced by climatic causes, especially ventilation, were alike in both the Semitic and European descendants of the one nation, the purely European being more prone to consumption and scrofula. It is interesting to note the difference in the moral, mental, and physical conditions induced by creeds; it would seem as if it should not make any difference. The generally accepted idea of religion is that it should raise the moral standard of all those nations who practice religion; but the results are very peculiar, as we are forced to admit that reformation in religion has not always been a reformation in morals. Take Great Britain for example; if illegitimacy is any criterion of the moral state of those professing creeds, we find the least among the Jew; next among the Catholic; next comes the Episcopalian; then last the Presbyterian,—the oldest creed showing the greatest moral tendency, and that of poor Knox, which is the youngest, showing the least. This has certainly its physical effects, that are not without its influence in producing a greater or lesser length of life. The evolution of religion has here induced a lower moral tone and a resulting physical degeneracy.

As observed by alienists, religions of different creeds have different tendencies in inducing insanity, both as to ratio of population and as to manifestations;[66] the Protestant, when unbalanced by religious cause, is generally controlled with some idea that shows itself in wild and erratic attempts at scriptural interpretation, caused by want of fixed dogmas and the unending splittings that are forever taking place in the new faith, and the persistent, intrusive, and belligerent spirit of proselytism that controls each new branch as it buds into existence. The Catholic has a fixed dogma, which the church attends to, and he neither feels called upon to make his neighbors miserable or himself insane in hunting up new interpretations. When he does go insane on the subject of religion, the cause, as a rule, can be traced to some real or imagined moral delinquency, which has brought all the terrors of the punishment of the damned forcibly and persistently to his disordered imagination. In the insane-asylums of Cork, in Ireland, with its overwhelming Catholic population, the ratio of inmates in regard to creeds is as that of one Catholic to ten of the Reformed religion, showing in the most conclusive manner the influence exerted by religion in this direction. On the other hand, the Jew has the simplest of religious creeds; he neither wastes useful time, robs himself of sleep, nor becomes dyspeptic in hunting for hidden meanings in some ambiguous scriptural phrase; he is satisfied with his creed, his dogmas are firmly anchored, and the nature of his religion being a sort of family congregation, he is not called upon to go out in search of proselytes, any more than the father of an already large family feels called upon to go out and hunt up the homeless, that he may convert his home into a promiscuous orphan-asylum. As before remarked, his creed is of the simplest, and there exists a complete and explicit understanding between his God and himself. There are no mystical, hidden meanings in Scripture for the Jew; nor does he dread any eternal, unheard-of, and inexplicable torments. His laws are very clear, and the punishments for their infraction very explicit. To the Jew it is a straight and well-lighted road, as far as religion is concerned. The writer has always felt that it took a mind that was incapable of appreciating simple truths, but that loved to hover on that mystical border-land on the confines of gloomy insanity that would allow its owner to seriously wander through and behold any theological beauties in Bunyan. To the Jew there is none of the gloomy, weird, mystical, mind-racking, ungodly theology that some of our creeds torture the poor brains of their professors with. As the wild Indian of the plains runs sticks through his anatomy and capers wildly about to torture his body, so some of the creeds delight in torturing their devotees. The Jewish religion is the one best suited to tranquilize the mind; it is very philosophical and rational. Were he to acknowledge Christ, he would not have to change his course of life to become a most exemplary Christian. The celebrated letter of Moses Mendelssohn to the Swiss clergyman, Lavater, in answer to a dedication of the latter to Mendelssohn, is probably the best exposition of the essence of the Jewish faith that can be found. Therein he says: “We believe that all other nations of the earth have been commanded by God to adhere to the laws of nature. Those who regulate their conduct according to this religion of nature and of reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and are the children of eternal salvation.” Such a religion does not unsettle man’s mind.

These apparent digressions are made to show what additional factors exist, besides circumcision, to induce longevity in the Jewish race, and that the subject may be better understood; for these reasons the above comparisons have been made. Students of demographic science are well aware that form of government, religion, climate, diet, habit, and custom,—all have an important bearing on the mental and physical as well as on the moral nature of man. To the true student of his art all these conditions are but factors in the physical scale, and should so be considered without fear or favor; to him the whole world is but a unit, and the people upon its surface are but as one people, alike subject to the leveling laws of nature, which recognize neither royalty nor vagrant, nationality nor creed, color, condition, nor station in life or society.

Professor Bernoulli, of Bale, found the Israelite less prolific than the Christian;[67] subject to less mortality, greater longevity, less still-born, less illegitimacy, less crime against the person, and less insanity and suicide, when compared with his Christian brother—all of which he attributes not to a superior physique or organism, but solely to the observance of the laws of their religion and to the nature of the same, which exercises a beneficial influence on the mind.

B. W. Richardson, in his “Diseases of Modern Life,” in speaking of the relation of race to disease, says: “Through the valuable labors of MM. Legoyt, Hoffmann, Neufville, and Mayer, we have obtained, however, some curious facts relative to the most widely disseminated of all races on the earth, the Jewish. These facts show that, from some cause or causes, this race presents an endurance against disease that does not belong to other portions of the civilized communities amongst which its members dwell. The distinctness of the Jews in the midst of other and mixed races singles them out specially for observation, and the history they present of vitality, or, in other words, of the resistance to those influences which tend to shorten the natural cycle of life, is singularly instructive.

“The resistance dates from the first to the last periods of life. Hoffmann finds that in Germany, from 1823 to 1840, the number of still-born among the Jews was as 1 in 39, while with other races it was 1 in 40. Mayer finds that in Furth children from one to five years of age die in the proportion of 10 per cent. among the Jewish, and 14 per cent. among the Christian population. M. Neufville, dealing with the same subject, from the statistics of Frankfurt, gives even a more favorable proportion of vitality to the Jewish child population. Continuing his estimates from the ages named into riper years, the value of life is still in favor of the Jews, the average duration of the life of the Jew being forty years and nine months and that of the Christian being thirty-six years and eleven months. In the total of all ages, the half of the Jews born reach the age of fifty-three years and one month, whilst half of the Christians born only reach the age of thirty-six years. A quarter of the Jewish population born is found living beyond seventy-one years, but a quarter of the Christian population is found living beyond fifty-nine years and ten months only. The Civil State extracts of Prussia give to the Jews a mortality of 1.61 per cent.; to the whole kingdom, 2.62 per cent. To the Jews they give an annual increase of 1.73 per cent.; to the Christian, 1.36 per cent. The effective of the Jews require a period of forty-one years and a half to double themselves; those of other races, fifty-one years. In 1849, Prussia returned one death for every forty-one of the Jews and one for every thirty-two of the remaining population.

“The Jews escaped the great epidemics more readily than the other races with whom they lived. Thus, the mortality from cholera amongst them is so small that the very fact of its occurrence has been disputed. Lastly, that element of mortality, suicide, which we may look upon philosophically as a phenomenon of disease, is computed by Glatter, from a proportion of one million of inhabitants of Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemburg, Austria, Hungary, and Transylvania, to have been committed by rather less than one of the Jewish race to four of the members of the mixed races of the Christian population. Different causes have been assigned for this higher vitality of the Jewish race, and it were indeed wise to seek for the causes, since that race which presents the strongest vitality, the greatest increase of life, and the longest resistance to death must in course of time become, under the influences of civilization, dominant. We see this truth, indeed, actually exemplified in the Jews; for no other known race has ever endured so much or resisted so much. Persecuted, oppressed by every imaginable form of tyranny, they have held together and lived, carrying on intact their customs, their beliefs, their faith, for centuries, until, set free at last, they flourish as if endowed with new force. They rule more potently than ever, far more potently than when Solomon in all his glory reigned in Jerusalem. They rule, and neither fight nor waste.”[68]

Richardson attributes the great benefits enjoyed in this regard by the Jewish race to the soberness of their lives. This position is, however, not altogether tenable, if by that we mean abstemiousness; they are extremely temperate, but not abstemious. Tissot, Cornaro, Lessius, Hufeland, Humphry, Sir Henry Thompson, as well as the older Greek and Roman authorities, all are agreed that an abstemious life is the one that is most conducive to long life. There is no race that is more proverbial for their good cheer and indulgence in the good things of the table than the Jewish; no race enjoys feasting any more than they, and from childhood they are accustomed to a generous and nutritious diet, as well as to their share of the wines with which their tables are supplied. Their greater thrift and application to business, their habits of economy and carefulness in business affairs enable them to better supply their tables. In California there is no class that lives better or whose tables are supplied so well either as to quality or quantity as those of the Jews, and yet no class is more exempt than they from the class of diseases that originate in too good living. As before remarked, in relation to the poor of that faith, who are unable to keep a servant, and who live in a combination of shop and home in the most unhygienic condition, disregarding ventilation and every other sanitary needs, but who, nevertheless, escape the evil results that would and do attend such social conditions among those of other races, so in this instance of good living: the better class of Jews do not suffer in anything near a like proportion to the better class Christians from diseases incident to too full habits and an inactive life. Richardson observes that he drinks less and that he eats better food than his Christian brother. In regard to the drinking habit, overindulgence is not a Jewish failing; they do not drink to excess, but total abstinence is not in their vocabulary. It is inconsistent with their idea of wine as being a gift of God, and something that is symbolical of good faith and thanksgiving. Nor is total abstinence consistent with their idea of generous hospitality. On the eighth day after birth the Jew tastes wine, and from the time he is able to sit at table he becomes familiar with its use. To him wine is not symbolical of either moral depravity, mental or physical deterioration, or of death. Their females are all accustomed to its use from childhood, but it does not cause them to become either immoral or unchaste; so that in neither sex does wine produce that moral and mental wreckage which abbreviates the length of human existence among those of other creeds. Radical fanaticism, that drives a tack with a maul and a twenty-penny spike with a tack-hammer, cannot be expected to study this or any other question in any rational manner; but to the sociologist, the question as to what produces this remarkable soberness, in the midst of the habitual and continued use of wine in the race from the time of its earliest history, is something worthy of calm and careful consideration. How much circumcision may have to do with this will be discussed in the medical part of the volume.

In London, according to Dr. Stallard, the mortality among Jewish children from one to five years is only ten per cent., while among the children of the Christians it is fourteen per cent., the rate being analogous to that observed by Mayer among those of these ages in Furth. Among the London adults the average duration of life among the Jews is forty-seven years, while among the Christians it is only thirty-seven.

Dr. Hough[69] has gathered some interesting historical and statistical matter bearing on the subject of Jewish resistance to disease and the benefit possessed by the race in relation to the immunity enjoyed by them in prevailing epidemics. The plague of 1346 did not affect them; according to Fracastor they escaped the typhus of 1505; Rau remarks their immunity to the typhus of 1824; Ramazzini noticed their exemption to the fatal intermittents of Rome, in 1691; and Degner says that they escaped the epidemic dysentery at Nimegue, in 1736. Richardson truly observes that “from epidemics the Jews have often escaped, as if they possessed a charmed life.” This racial difference and benefit, when compared to other races, has more than once cost them dear. In the dark and ignorant ages, when men reasoned nothing from a physical basis, but attributed all and every phenomena to some supernatural agency, either heavenly or diabolical, it was but natural for such minds to associate this exemption with some purchased compact made with the devil, who was often also held accountable for the existence of the epidemics. The rational and law-of-nature observing Jew supposed to be in league with his satanic majesty could neither be seen nor heard in his own defense; consequently, massacres, pillaging, and such other barbarities that an insane popular fury could suggest, were the humane manifestations with which a Christian people visited their Jewish brothers, whose only sin consisted in worshiping the God of their fathers, and in strictly observing His laws and commandments.

In France, Dr. Neufville found that, of one hundred children in the first five years of life, among the Jewish population, 12.9 die; while from the same number of the same aged class of Christians 24.1 die. One-half of all the Christians die at thirty-six years, and one-half of all the Jews at fifty-three years and one month.

Dr. John S. Billings has gathered statistics relating to 10,618 Jewish families, consisting of 60,630 persons,[70] living in the United States in December, 1889, mostly descendants of Jews from the northern or middle nations of Europe. For our purpose only the deductions as to death-rate and tendency to longevity will be given. In this valuable paper Dr. Billings says: “When we come to examine the reports of deaths for five years furnished by these Jewish families, we find that they give an average annual death-rate of only 7.1 per 1000, which would be about one-half of the annual death-rate among other persons of the same average social class and condition living in this country.” To this he adds that, provided the deaths at different ages among the Jews have been correctly reported, this race will, on comparison with those of other races, show a greater tendency to longevity, as the Jewish expectation of life is at each age markedly greater than that of the class of people who insure their lives, the average excess being a little over twenty per cent.

In speaking of the death-rate among children, Dr. Billings makes the following comparisons: “The low death-rate among the Jews is especially marked among the children, and this corresponds to European experience. Thus in Prussia, in 1887, the death-rate of the Jews under fifteen years of age was 5.63 for 1000, while among the remainder of the people it was 10.46 per 1000.” This result he accounts for partly to the fact that among the Jews illegitimacy is comparatively rare and to the high rate of mortality among the illegitimate born, which raises the average of the other classes.

In regard to the immunity of the race from consumption or tubercular disease, the statistics of the above Jewish families gives to the Jews less than one-third of the number of deaths from these diseases than what occurs among the others as to the male population, and less than one-fourth as to the female population. These statistics coincide with the observations of the writer on this part of the subject, and are even more than corroborated by the French War-Office Reports from Algeria, where the deaths from consumption among the Christians amount to 1 for each 9.3 deaths, and among the Jews to 1 in 36.9, while among the Mohammedans it is only 1 in 40.7 deaths. In Algeria the relative mortality from all causes is only about three-fifths of that of the Christian, and the Turk, although seeming to enjoy a greater exemption from phthisical or tubercular diseases than the Jew, falls below the Jew in exemption from deaths due to general causes, as his mortality is one-eighth greater than that of the Jew. Dr. Billings gives us some interesting food for thought in the course of his article and some more particularly bearing on the subject of immunity from consumption. He asks: “Are these differences due to race characteristics, properly so-called, to original and inherited differences in bodily organization, or are they, rather, to be attributed to the customs, habits, and modes of life of the two classes of people?”

Some years ago, Henry I. Bowditch, of Boston, put on foot an extended system of inquiry in regard to ascertaining the causes or antecedents of consumption in the State of Massachusetts. In answer to some of the questions of the circular, Rabbi Dr. Guinzburg, of Boston, answered as follows, under date of October 29, 1872:—

1st. The number of Jews living in Boston is about 5000.

2d. There certainly have not died of consumption, during the last five years, more than eight or ten Jews in the various congregations.

To this Dr. Bowditch adds, as follows:—

“If Dr. Guinzburg’s data be correct, they show a very great immunity from consumption on the part of the Jews, compared with the citizens generally, as will be seen by the following comparison between these numbers and those procured from the Registration Reports, published by the State. In the report published in 1869, page 64, we find that for the five years preceding 1869 the annual average of deaths by consumption was 338 for every 100,000 living. These data from Dr. Guinzburg and the State Report give the following table:—