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ROUTINE CIRCUMCISION ?
An important question for many people is whether routine male circumcision
should be practiced or not. Apart from ethnological or religious reasons,
I believe the routine practice on boys who have nothing wrong with
them is pointless. In an information centred culture it would be much
more sensible to routinely check all boys to determine whether a boy
needed treatment, and if so, which sort of correction he required.
Anthropology
 The text continues with a study of the unsolved mystery of the origin
of the practice of routine male circumcision. The following theory
has never been considered by anthropologists.
The Theory in Short
The human mind in the late Stone Age, was certainly very different
to ours, however their bodies were similar. The possibility is that
men in those days also had unpleasant experiences with these conditions.
Such men could have had the personal conviction (or deluded fanaticism),
to introduce this measure, in order to prevent similar experiences
happening to any other member of their family.
The anthropology text is 2,150 words long. It is available on request
or through internet.
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Appendix a
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ANCIENT METHODS OF OPERATION
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Full marks for creativity goes to New Guinea, "Long pendulous foreskins
are apparently a thing of beauty for some tribes in New Guinea who
deliberately stretch them by suspending weights from the penis"36 .
There is the possibility of "removing some of the foreskin and leaving
the remainder as a flap, as practiced by the Maasai and Kikuyu of
East Africa, or cutting the foreskin away but retaining it as two
flaps, as practiced by the Tikopia of Polynesia"37 .
"The most rudimentary form of male circumcision is a simple gash of
the prepuce", "the simple process of tearing the prepuce with the
fingers", or "a wedge-shaped piece is excised"38 .
It is worth noting that "In some Turkish families the foreskin is
retracted straight away after birth, and this is done periodically,
in order to prevent adhesions"39 . In addition at least two cultures
perform an incision of the frenulum, "the inhabitants of the Loyalty
Islands . . and, . . on Tahiti"s40 .
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