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.