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}}</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. The practice of epispasm seems to have persisted from the Second Century B. C. to the Sixth Century A. D.<ref name="hall1991">{{REFjournal

}}</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>

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 natural — although that is of real importance—but 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

|init=FM |author-link=Frederick M. Hodges

Hall reported that surgery was necessary for epispasm.,<ref name="hall1991" />however that is not correct.

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

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" />

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]]