Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall].

  • Eric Dingwall
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    17/164 page 3
    damus, Scheller, etc. As I am not concerned here with the critical biography of the various authors cited, I would refer those of my readers who are desirous of knowing more of this famous Roman physician and surgeon to the historical monograph on Celsus by Carl Kissel.1 Although it is as a medical man that Celsus is chiefly noted, he wrote also on law, philosophy, history, and agriculture. The De Medicina itself is divided into eight books. After a short historical introduction, Celsus proceeds to discuss the two prevailing philoso¬ phical schools of his own day, namely, the rationalists and the empiricists. The third and fourth books are devoted to particular diseases and their treatment, whilst the four last books are given up to a discus¬ sion of pharmacy and certain surgical operations. It is in Lib. VII, cap. 25, sect. 3, that the operation is described. The passage runs as follows : Infibulare quoque adolescentulos interdum vocis, interdum valetudinis causa, quidam consuerunt: ejusque haec ratio est. Cutis, quae super glandem est, extenditur, notaturque utrimque a lateribus atramento, qua perforetur; deinde remittitur. Si super glandem notae revertuntur, nimis apprehen- sum est, et ultra notari debet: si glans ab his libera est, is locus idoneus fibulae est. Turn, qua notae sunt, cutis acu filum ducente transsuitur, ejusque fili capita inter se deligantur, quotidieque ad movetur, donee circa foramina cicatriculae fiant. Ubi eae confirmatae sunt, exemto filo fibula additur, quae quo levior, eo melior est. Sed hoc quidem saepius inter supervacua, quam inter necessaria est. (Ed. C. Daremberg, p. 306.)2 1 0. Kissel, A. C. Celsus : eine historische Monographie (Giessen, 1844). Abt. I only was published. An excellent account will also be found in P. P. Broca’s Conferences historiques de la FacultS de Medecine. Celse (Paris, 1865). 2 There are slight variations in the readings. The most impor¬ tant is that concerning the words interdum vocis. These do not occur in the MS. at Paris, nor are they in the 1478 edition. That
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3