20,855
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Add category.
'''Epispasm''' is a word derived from ancient Greek, (''επισπασμοσ''), that means circumcision reversal or [[foreskin restoration]].<ref>{{Construction SiteREFweb |url=https://www.yourdictionary.com/epispasm |title=Epispasm |last= |first= |accessdate=2020-07-17}}</ref> Epispasm was popular in the First Century among [[circumcised]] Jewish men who wished to appear as [[intact]] Greek. The practice of epispasm seems to have persisted from the Second Century B. C. to the Sixth Century A. D.<ref name="hall1991">{{REFjournal |last=Hall |first=Robert |init=R |author-link= |title=Epispasm: circumcision in reverse |journal=Bible Review |date=1992-08 |volume= |issue= |pages=52-7 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/hall1/ |accessdate=2020-07-17}}</ref> Foreskin restoration is mentioned in the Apocryphal text of 1 Maccabees 14-15.<ref>{{REFweb |url=https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Maccabees+1%3A14-15&version=NCB |title=1 Maccabees 1-14-15 |last= |first= |init= |publisher=Bible Gateway |date= |accessdate=2022-08-29}}</ref> ==Lipodermos== Hodges (2001) reported, ''Lipodermos'' is the name given by the Greeks to the condition of having a deficient [[foreskin]]. According to Hodges:<blockquote>Through the development of the concept of ''lipodermos'', Greek medicine gave to Greek civilization a scientific reinforcement of its disapproval of the violations of [[genital integrity]] occurring in the Near East. This ethos posited not only that a [[circumcised]] [[penis]] is a deviation from the natural — although that is of real importance — but that a [[circumcised]] penis is a defective and disfigured [[penis]], one that can be repaired by medical treatment. Medicine and law thereby entered into a mutually supportive relationship: [[circumcision]] was against the law because it mutilated its victims, but, taken to the next logical level in this medico-ethical argument, it was also against the law because it necessarily inflicted a state of ''lipodermos'' on its victims.<ref name="hodges2001">{{REFjournal |last=Hodges |first=Frederick M. |init=FM |author-link=Frederick M. Hodges |etal=no |title=The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme |trans-title= |language=English |journal=Bull. Hist. Med. |location= |date=2001-09 |volume=75 |issue=3 |pages=375-405 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/history/hodges2/ |archived= |quote= |pubmedID=11568485 |pubmedCID= |DOI=10.1353/bhm.2001.0119 |accessdate=2020-07-17}}</ref></blockquote> ==Ancient surgical epispasm== Hall reported that surgery was necessary for epispasm,<ref name="hall1991" /> however that is not correct. ==Ancient tissue expansion for epispasm== Schultheiss et al. (1998) report that, in an alternative to the surgical procedures, a weight made of bronze, copper, or leather, called the ''Pondus Judaeus'', was attached to the residual foreskin that pulled the [[skin]] downward and stretched it which resulted in [[tissue expansion]].<ref name="schultheiss1998">{{REFjournal |last=Schultheiss |first=Dirk |init=D |author-link= |last2=Truss |first2=Michael C. |init2=MC |author2-link= |last3=Stief |first3=Christian G. |init3=CG |author3-link= |last4=Jonas |first4=Udo |init4=U |author4-link= |etal=no |title=Uncircumcision: a historical review of preputial restoration |trans-title= |language= |journal=Plast Reconstr Surg |location= |date=1998-06 |volume=101 |issue=7 |pages=1990-8 |url=http://www.cirp.org/library/restoration/schultheiss/ |archived= |quote= |pubmedID= 9623850 |pubmedCID= |DOI=10.1097/00006534-199806000-00037 |accessdate=2020-07-17}}</ref> In Greek terminology, a person who had undergone the procedure of [[stretching]] the [[Foreskin|prepuce]] was known as ''epispastikós'', the stretched one (epispasmós = pull-over). Similarly, the Romans addressed him as ''recutitio'', the reskinned (cutis = [[skin]]), not differentiating by this term whether it was done surgically or nonsurgically.<ref name="schultheiss1998" /> ==Epispasm in the present day== The technique was lost but it was rediscovered in the late Twentieth Century by a group of American men who called themselves Brothers United for Future Foreskins ([[BUFF]]). Epispasm, now known as ''non-surgical foreskin [[restoration]]'', seems to be of ever-increasing popularity in the Twenty-first Century among [[circumcised]] men and even circumcised teenagers as young as 13 years of age.<ref>The popular REDDIT website has a sub-reddit for restoring teens that was started by a thirteen-year-old teen-age restorer. At least one other participant gives his age as thirteen.</ref> {{SEEALSO}}* [[Aulus Cornelius Celsus]]* [[Foreskin restoration]]* [[Foreskin restoration information for circumcised teens]] {{REF}} [[Category:Education]][[Category:Greece]][[Category:History]][[Category:Foreskin restoration]][[Category:Judaism]][[Category:Physiology]] [[de:Epispasmus]]