in antiquity. It was a custom among the Romans to infibulate their flinging boys, in order to preserve their voices; for this operation, which prevented their retracting the prepuce over the glans, and is the very reverse to circumcision, kept them from injuring their voices by premature and prepotent venery; serving as a kind of padlock, if not to their inclinations, at least to their abilities. It appears by some passages in Martial, that a less decent use was made of infibulation among the luxurious Romans: for some ladies of distinction, it seems, took this method of confining their paramours to their own embraces. Juvenal also hints at some such practice. Celsus, a chaste author, says infibulation was sometimes practised for the sake of health, and that nothing destroys it more than the filly practice this operation seems intended to prevent. This practice is not perhaps likely to be revived; if, however, any one who has suffered in his constitution by prepotent venery, should be able to get children, and should be inclined to prevent the same misfortune in them by infibulation, the method of doing it is thus: The skin which is above the glans is to be extended, and marked on both sides with ink, where it is perforated, and then suffered to retract itself. If the marks recur upon the glans, too much of the skin has been taken up, and we must make the marks farther; if the glans remain free from them, they show the proper place for affixing a fibula; then pass a needle and thread through the skin where the marks are, and tie the threads together; taking care to move it every day, until the parts about the perforations are cicatrified: this being effected, take out the thread, and put in the fibula; which the lighter it is the better.

Authors have not determined what the fibula of the ancient surgeons was, though no doubt it was for different purposes. In the present case, the fibula seems to mean a ring of metal, not unlike what the country people put through the noses of swine.