Epispasm
Epispasm is a word derived from ancient Greek, (επισπασμοσ), that means circumcision reversal or foreskin restoration.[1] Epispasm was popular in the First Century among circumcised Jewish men who wished to appear as Greek.[2]
Hodges (2001) reported, Lipodermos is the name given by the Greeks to the condition of having a deficient foreskin. According to Hodges:
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.[3]
Hall (1992) reported that a surgical operation was necessary to restore the missing foreskin.[2]
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.[4]
The practice of epispasm seems to have persisted from the Second Century B. C. to the Sixth Century A. D.[2]
In Greek terminology, a person who had undergone the procedure of stretching the 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.[4]
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.[5]
References
- ↑
Epispasm
. Retrieved 17 July 2020. - ↑ a b c
Hall, Robert. Epispasm: circumcision in reverse. Bible Review. August 1992; : 52-7. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
- ↑ Hodges, Frederick M.. The Ideal Prepuce in Ancient Greece and Rome: Male Genital Aesthetics and Their Relation to Lipodermos, Circumcision, Foreskin Restoration, and the Kynodesme. Bull. Hist. Med.. September 2001; 75(3): 375-405. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
- ↑ a b Schultheiss, Dirk, Truss, Michael C., Stief, Christian G., Jonas, Udo. Uncircumcision: a historical review of preputial restoration. Plast Reconstr Surg. June 1998; 101(7): 1990-8. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 17 July 2020.
- ↑ 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.
