WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF CIRCUMCISION?
There are those, even among the Hebrews, who are so imbued with the
purely theological idea of the origin, performance, and causes of
circumcision, that they cannot see any moral nor hygienic value in the
operation. Among many Christians the idea still prevails that
circumcision is the relic of some barbarous rite, practiced in some
epoch away in the remote ages of the world, grafted on to the Jewish
religion by some accident or other; but that beyond the clinging of the
Jews to this custom, as being a remnant of their old religion, they
neither see in the rite any other significance, moral results, nor
hygienic precaution; and the fact of a Jew being circumcised is too
often made a subject of merriment among the unthinking portion of the
Christian world. Neither are physicians all of one accord on the subject
as to whether circumcision is a benefit, or, being useless, a dangerous
and an unnecessary operation. The writer is most emphatically in favor
of circumcision, and has the fullest faith in the positive moral and
physical benefits that mankind gains from the operation.
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 anaemic 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,
Wuertemburg, 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:--
Proportion of Deaths to
100,000 of Living.
All religions, 338
Jews, 40
"These statements from Dr. Guinzburg are confirmed by the following
letter from Dr. A. Haskins, of this city. Dr. Haskins is connected with
one of the Jewish benevolent associations for the benefit of the sick. I
sent to him similar questions and make the following extracts from his
reply:--
"'I am generally employed in about sixty families (Jewish). I have had
these families under my care for two and a half years. During this time
I have seen but one case of consumption. I have averaged among these
sixty families about two visits daily. In my other Jewish practice,
which is not inconsiderable, I have in this time (two and a half years)
seen two cases of consumption.... I am sorry I have no statistics
whereby I could compare the two peoples, viz., Jews and Christians. I
can, therefore, give you only my impressions. I should say that I find
consumption less frequent among the Jews than among Christians. This
would be my own impression without any data to fortify it.'
"Dr. Waterman also sustains the same idea. The following extract will
give some idea of his opportunities for observation and the sources of
his deductions:--
"'BOSTON, November 2, 1872. Dear Sir,-- ... First, I have attended four
charitable associations; number about forty, fifty, sixty, and one
hundred families. At present I only attend one, containing one hundred
families, and on which I average a fraction over one visit a day. I
have, besides, many private families among the Jews. I have attended but
few cases of consumption, and I think the disease is not so prevalent as
among Christians.'"
The same report of Dr. Bowditch quotes from Stallard's "London Pauperism
Amongst Jews and Christians," as saying that there is no hereditary
syphilis, and scarcely any scrofula to augment the mortality in the
Jewish families.
In relation to the liability of the Hebrew race to phthisis, Richardson
has the following at page 22 of his "Diseases of Modern Life": "The
special inroads on vitality made on other races by disease are not
easily determined, because of the difficulties arising from temporary
admixture of race. I tried once to elicit some facts from a large
experience of a particular disease, phthisis pulmonalis, and, as the
results of this attempt may be useful, I put them briefly on record.
"At a public institution at which large numbers of persons afflicted
with chest diseases applied for medical assistance, and at which I was
for many years one of the physicians, I made notes during a short
portion of the time of the connection that existed between race and the
particular disease I have instanced--phthisis pulmonalis, or pulmonary
consumption. The number of persons observed under the disease was three
hundred, and no person was put on the record who was not suffering from
a malady pure and simple; I mean without complication with any other
malady. They who were thus studied were of four classes: (_a_) those who
were by race distinctly Saxon; (_b_) those who were of mixed race, or
whose race could not be determined; (_c_) those who were distinctly
Celtic; (_d_) those who were distinctly Jewish.
"The results were, that of the three hundred patients, one hundred and
thirty-three, 44.33 per cent., were Saxon; one hundred and eighteen,
39.33 per cent., were of mixed or undetermined race; thirty-one, 10.33
per cent., were Celtic; and eighteen, 6 per cent., were Jewish."
Although Dr. Richardson admits it would be unfair to accept the above
figures as a basis for general application, he argues that they are, on
the average, sufficiently suggestive, as among the Saxons it was noticed
that there were more cases in whom the disease was hereditary, while
among the others it was generally acquired.
In going over the subject of this question in regard to phthisis, we
must admit that, although the Jew in his own home, synagogue, or in his
social reunions, is not exposed to tubercular emanations, and that he
has less chance of contracting the disease from tuberculous meats, he
is, after all, a theatre-goer; a pretty constant inhabitant of the
sleeping-car and hotel, as a commercial traveler and general merchant;
and that, on the whole, he eats the same food, breathes the air and dust
of the same streets, and drinks the same milk and water as the
Christian, and, as observed by Dr. Billings, cooking destroys the
bacillus in meats. So that the comparative exposure in this
country--where the practice is not as prevalent as in Germany of eating
raw minced-meat sandwiches--existing between the Jew and the Christian
to tubercular infection from meat are about equal. The records of the
Jewish Hospital of New York gives, out of 28,750 persons admitted, only
44.17 per 1000 of its admissions as being due to consumption; while
those of the Roosevelt Hospital, out of 25,583 admissions, gives a per
1000 of 67.93.
From what is known of the relation of syphilis to consumption, not only
as affecting the primary individual, but the subsequent generations of
the same, and the known greater exemption of the Jew to syphilitic
infection, owing to the protecting influence of circumcision, it is safe
to assert that therein is to be found one of the main reasons of the
exemption of that race to consumption. If we but look at the
geographical distribution of phthisis and the history of its progress,
we shall find that it has had syphilis as its _avant courrier_ on more
than one occasion. Lancereaux, in his "Distribution of Pulmonary
Phthisis," points to the fact that where consumption has made its
greatest ravages, and where it has nearly depopulated one of the great
divisions of the globe,--namely, the groups of islands in the Pacific
Ocean,--the disease had no existence at the beginning of the present
century. Syphilis, scrofula, and a quick, galloping consumption have,
since the last ninety years, taken off the greater part of the
population. The same course of transition from the best of physical
conditions to racial deterioration and extinction from the same relative
condition of causes--syphilis, scrofula, and phthisis--has been observed
among the open-air dwellers of the New Mexican Plains, in the mountains
of Arizona, and on the arid wastes of the Colorado Desert, where the
appearance of consumption cannot be attributed to housing or incipient
civilization, as it is attributed to housing among the Chippeways,
Sioux, or Mandans in the regions that formerly formed the Northwest
Territory. The question is very plainly answered as to how consumption
was introduced or whence it sprung that has so ravaged the Oceanic
Islands. The sailors who first visited those islands were not, as a
rule, a batch of consumptive tourists on a voyage in search of health or
recreation; but we can well understand that the proverbially improvident
mariner has not always had his health looked after by an Anson or a
Cook, and that many a festive tar who induced the unsophisticated Indian
maid to join him in worship at the shrine of Venus Porcina carried in
the innermost recesses of the folds of his pendulous and sea-beaten
prepuce the remnants of former Bacchanalian festivities performed in the
questionable temples of Venus and Bacchus in Portsmouth or London.
Consumption, as such, was neither imported nor propagated by Europeans
into those islands, its original entry being in the shape of syphilis.
Had it been the ancient mariners of old Phoenicia in the days of its
circumcision, or the circumcised marines of the ancient Atlantean fleets
from the sunken continent of Plato, instead of the uncircumcised
sailors of modern England, that first and since visited those islands,
it is safe to say that consumption would not now exist there. From this,
it may be well to inquire what would be the relation between the Jewish
race and consumption; were circumcision among them to be done away with,
would it not be greatly on the increase?
The weight of testimony is evidently convincing that the Jew has a
greater longevity and stronger resistance to disease, as well as a less
liability to physical ills, than other races; that all these exemptions
or benefits are not altogether due to social customs is evident; how
much circumcision may have to do in inducing these favorable conditions
can be better appreciated by a consideration of how circumcision affects
those of other races, and more particularly how its performance works
changes in the individual in his general health and condition, and in
doing away with many physical ailments that the individual was
previously subjected to. So that the Jew cannot be said to be a loser by
his observance of this rite, and he and his race have been well repaid
for all the sufferings and persecutions that its observance has
subjected them to. As observed by John Bell, "The preservation of health
and the attainment of long life are objects of desire to every man, no
matter in what age or country his lot is cast, nor by what arbitrary
tenure he holds his life. They are the wish of the master and the slave,
of the illiterate and the learned, of the timid Hindoo and the warlike
Arab, of the natives of New Zealand not less than of the inhabitants of
New England,--an indispensable condition for the greatest and longest
enjoyment of the senses and propensities; for the widest range and
exercise of intellect and gratification of the sentiments, whether these
be lofty or ignoble, health, in any special degree, has ever been a fit
subject of contemplation and instruction by the philosopher and
legislator. Their advice and edicts on the means of preserving it have
frequently been enforced as a part of religious duty, and, at all times,
civilization, even in its elementary forms, has been marked by laws on
this head. With the numerous and minute hygienic enactments of the great
Jewish lawgiver for the guidance of the people of Israel we are all
familiar. Prompted, we may suppose, in part by the example of Moses, and
also by considerations growing out of the nature of the climate in which
he lived, Mohammed incorporated with the mingled reveries, ethics, and
blasphemies, which composed his Koran, dietetic rules and observances of
regimen that are to this day implicitly obeyed by his zealous
followers."[71]
If circumcision is not a factor in the difference that exists between
the Jewish race and other races, if it goes for nothing as an exemptor
of disease and the promoter of longevity, then there must exist some
other factor or cause that induces these conditions. What this factor
is, the legislator, the sociologist, and the physician should make it
their business to find out.