Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine [477]
her virginity during participation in the celebrations in the Temples of Venus, the debauches of Venus and Mars, etc., wherein vice was authorized by divine injunction; for this reason the lips of the vagina were closed by rings of iron, copper, or silver, so joined as to hinder coitus, but not prevent evacuation. Different sized rings were used for those of different ages. Although this device provided against the coitus, the maiden was not free from the assaults of the Lesbians. During the Middle Ages, in place of infibulation, chastity-girdles were used, and in the Italian girdles, such as the one exhibited in the Musee Cluny in Paris, both the anus and vulva were protected by a steel covering perforated for the evacuations. In the Orient, particularly in India and Persia, according to old travelers, the labia were sewed together, allowing but a small opening for excretions. Buffon and Brown mention infibulation in Abyssinia, the parts being separated by a bistoury at the time of marriage. In Circassia the women were protected by a copper girdle or a corset of hide and skin which, according to custom, only the husband could undo. Peney speaks of infibulation for the preservation of chastity, as observed by him in the Soudan. Among the Nubians this operation was performed at about the age of eight with great ceremony, and when the time for marriage approached the vulva had to be opened by incision. Sir Richard Buxton, a distinguished traveler, also speaks of infibulation, and, according to him, at the time of the marriage ceremony the male tries to prove his manhood by using only Nature's method and weapon to consummate the marriage, but if he failed he was allowed artificial aid to effect entrance. Sir Samuel Baker is accredited in The Lancet with giving an account in Latin text of the modus operandi of a practice among the Nubian women of removing the clitoris and nymphae in the young girl, and abrading the adjacent walls of the external labia so that they would adhere and leave only a urethral aperture.
This ancient custom of infibulation is occasionally seen at the present day in civilized countries, and some cases of infibulation from jealousy are on record. There is mentioned, as from the Leicester Assizes, the trial of George Baggerly for execution of a villainous design on his wife. In jealousy he "had sewed up her private parts." Recently, before the New York Academy of Medicine, Collier reported a case of pregnancy in a woman presenting nympha-infibulation. The patient sought the physician's advice in the summer of 1894, while suffering from uterine disease, and being five weeks pregnant. She was a German woman of twenty-eight, had been married several years, and was the mother of several children. Collier examined her and observed two holes in the nymphae. When he asked her concerning these, she reluctantly told him that she had been compelled by her husband to wear a lock in this region. Her mother, prior to their marriage, sent her over to the care of her future husband (he having left Germany some months before). On her arrival he perforated the labia minora, causing her to be ill several weeks; after she had sufficiently recovered he put on a padlock, and for many years he had practiced the habit of locking her up after each intercourse. Strange to relate, no physician, except Collier, had ever inquired about the openings. In this connection the celebrated Harvey mentions a mare with infibulated genitals, but these did not prevent successful labor.
Occasionally infibulation has been used as a means of preventing masturbation. De la Fontaine has mentioned this fact, and there is a case in this country in which acute dementia from masturbation was cured by infibulation. In this instance the prepuce was perforated in two opposite places by a trocar, and two pewter sounds (No. 2) were introduced into the wounds and twisted like rings. On the eleventh day one of the rings was removed, and a fresh one introduced in a new place. A cure was effected in eight weeks. There is recent mention made of a method
This ancient custom of infibulation is occasionally seen at the present day in civilized countries, and some cases of infibulation from jealousy are on record. There is mentioned, as from the Leicester Assizes, the trial of George Baggerly for execution of a villainous design on his wife. In jealousy he "had sewed up her private parts." Recently, before the New York Academy of Medicine, Collier reported a case of pregnancy in a woman presenting nympha-infibulation. The patient sought the physician's advice in the summer of 1894, while suffering from uterine disease, and being five weeks pregnant. She was a German woman of twenty-eight, had been married several years, and was the mother of several children. Collier examined her and observed two holes in the nymphae. When he asked her concerning these, she reluctantly told him that she had been compelled by her husband to wear a lock in this region. Her mother, prior to their marriage, sent her over to the care of her future husband (he having left Germany some months before). On her arrival he perforated the labia minora, causing her to be ill several weeks; after she had sufficiently recovered he put on a padlock, and for many years he had practiced the habit of locking her up after each intercourse. Strange to relate, no physician, except Collier, had ever inquired about the openings. In this connection the celebrated Harvey mentions a mare with infibulated genitals, but these did not prevent successful labor.
Occasionally infibulation has been used as a means of preventing masturbation. De la Fontaine has mentioned this fact, and there is a case in this country in which acute dementia from masturbation was cured by infibulation. In this instance the prepuce was perforated in two opposite places by a trocar, and two pewter sounds (No. 2) were introduced into the wounds and twisted like rings. On the eleventh day one of the rings was removed, and a fresh one introduced in a new place. A cure was effected in eight weeks. There is recent mention made of a method