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updated wikilink to Ken McGrath
{{Citation
| Text=… neither of these [figures >10,000 and >20,000] is anywhere near the truth, because they are an order of magnitude too high.
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]
| ref=<ref name="footnote2">see footnotes 27 and 31</ref>
}}
{{Citation
| Text=In orders of magnitude, the number has to be >1,000 and <10,000.
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]
| ref=<ref name="footnote2" />
}}
==== The “ridged band" ====
In 1996 the article by the Canadian pathologist John R. Taylor et al.<ref name="Taylor" /> about the “ridged band” of the [[foreskin]] had appeared. Taylor reported, that the encapsulated nerve endings<ref>Nerve endings can be divided into types with or without end corpuscles (corpuscular/encapsulated or free nerve endings). “… the free nerve endings (FNE) … do not seem to have any part in fine touch sensation (they are enervated by unmyelinated axons which conduct too slowly, don’t have specialised end corpuscles to transduce vibration etc and have a high threshold, all of which prevent the conduction of fine touch).” [[Ken McGrath|McGrath]], Fn 29b</ref> of the [[foreskin]] are concentrated in the “ridged band” and thus are distributed very differently. In his article, Fleiss also mentions the "ridged mucosa" and calls Taylor as a source. He therefore knew of Taylor’s work.
==== Not a “logical extrapolation”<ref name="galleryIntact" /> ====
2015: https://www.regulations.gov/document?D=CDC-2014-0012-2326.[“nerve” instead of n.-endings!]</ref>
These and many other publications have spread the legend of “20,000 …” widely.<ref name="Appendix" /> Often, the legend is made more believable by giving the impression that it is verifiable. So it is often linked in publications with a ref. note, which does not mention the number, like at first 1997 in the article of Fleiss<ref name="Fleiss" />,<ref name="schariagegner">in: beschneidung-von-jungen.de/Nachteile, also in: https://schariagegner.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/</ref>. Sometimes the impression is given that a figure which is the maximum is average<ref name="Fn11b" />,<ref name="ForeskinSize" />,<ref>a.) according to McGrath’s e-mail from 18.09.2017 to the author: “… the message to which he refers was from another of the colleagues who inflated the figure.” b.) In an e-mail from 27.09.2017 to the author [[Ken McGrath |McGrath]] writes: “I have no idea where the ’70,000’ number comes from. It is even more impossible, absurd even, than the 20,000 estimate. It is probably representative of the inflation of the number brought on by wishfull thinking and should be ignored.”</ref>, or nerves are referred to instead of nerve endings<ref>intaktiv e.V.-Flyer, German <sup>2</sup>2016: http://intaktiv.de/downloads/flyer/ ; Fn 21, 2015; Fn 22, 1. Link</ref> – a big difference in number.
==== „>1000<10,000“ ====
[[Ken McGrath]], New Zealand senior lecturer in pathology and anatomist (now retired), estimated the number of nerve endings in the prepuce, Summer 1998:
{{Citation
| Text=I did a quick back-of-the-envelope guesstimate based on a fingertip and arrived at an orders of magnitude figure of >1000<10000 … this figure quickly inflated, first to >10,000 and then to >20,000; neither of these is anywhere near the truth, because they are an order of magnitude too high. …” <ref>McGrath’s e-mail from 5.7.2013 quoted in www.circfacts.org/sensitivity (emphasis from author)</ref>,<ref>So the numbers „70,000+“ and „between 80,000 and 100,000” are found on the internet, see: http://www.savingsons.org/2009/10/ ; https://www.vice.com/de_ch/article/7bm5gx/ein-mann-und-seine-vorhaut
many more by searching on internet.</ref>
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]
}}
A claim from [[Stephen Moreton]] PhD that [[Ken McGrath]] has given a previous higher estimate in a 2008 e-mail<ref>in www.circfacts.org/sensitivity</ref> is refused by [[Ken McGrath ]] as not being by him.<ref>a.) according to McGrath’s e-mail from 18.09.2017 to the author: “… the message to which he refers was from another of the colleagues who inflated the figure.” b.) In an e-mail from 27.09.2017 to the author [[Ken McGrath|McGrath ]] writes: “I have no idea where the ’70,000’ number comes from. It is even more impossible, absurd even, than the 20,000 estimate. It is probably representative of the inflation of the number brought on by wishfull thinking and should be ignored.”</ref>
In '''2017''', [[Ken McGrath ]] confirms his estimate from 1998<ref>McGrath’s statement in a contribution to a yet unpublished book (emphasis from author), made available to the author by forwarded email from L.R. Watson to [[Ulf Dunkel ]] on May 31, 2017.</ref>:
{{Citation
| Text=The following method has been used to estimate the number of corpuscular nerve endings in the [[foreskin]]. The frenular delta and frenular band are more sensitive than a fingertip; one square centimetre of fingertip has about 30-40 ridges with approximately three Meissner’s corpuscles in every millimetre of ridge. For each centimetre of ridge there would be thirty Meissner’s corpuscles and thus 900-1200 per cm2 of tip. The area of the frenular delta is equivalent to or greater than three fingertip areas, i.e. about 3-4 cm2. Therefore, at a minimum, the most sensitive area of the prepuce would have at least 3000 corpuscular endings. In orders of magnitude, the number has to be more than 1000 and less than 10,000. Some writers have erroneously inflated this estimate to 20,000 or more. More research is needed to clarify the actual number and distribution.
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]
}}
And in a further actual statement about the 20,000 figure [[Ken McGrath |McGrath]] writes:
{{Citation
| Text=[…] it is impossible for the [[foreskin]] to support such a huge number: there is not enough surface area to mount so many receptors (they would nearly outnumber the epithelial cells!) and the known number of axons ranging into the prepuce could not connect to that number. Furthermore, such a vast number is totally unnecessary to achieve the known high sensitivity of the prepuce.
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]| <ref>a.) quoted after [[Ken McGrath|McGrath]], Fn 27a; b.)</ref>
}}
In a further e-mail from 19.09.2017 to the author [[Ken McGrath ]] writes about his estimate:
{{Citation
| Text=I made my estimate at the Symposium held in Oxford UK, Summer 1998. … I made my informal ‘back of the envelope’ estimation in response to a question during discussion outside the meeting. … Paul Fleiss did not differentiate between the types [of nerve endings] either and simply took Bazett's total number for his estimate.
In my estimation, I extrapolated the numbers of Meissner corpuscular endings from the finger tip to the prepuce as these are the principal mediators of fine touch (and, therefore, of sexual sensation). All skin appears to have many free nerve endings evenly distributed over their surfaces regardless of the local function; two epithelia, however, have virtually no fine touch—the cornea of the eye and the [[Glans penis|glans penis]]—having almost nothing but free nerve endings. The prepuce is no exception to this general pattern of having FNE over its entire surface, but like most other skin (except the two exceptions above) it has varying numbers and distribution of corpuscular endings which are in lower numbers than the FNE. From teaching skin enervation to medical students using sections of an index finger, I knew the numbers of Meissner Corpuscles in that skin. Observation and personal experience told me that the prepuce was more sensitive than the finger tips which suggested there are more of those fine touch endings in the prepuce. But I could not be definite about the numbers in the prepuce having only looked at some general sections. So I made an estimate in orders of magnitude: not less than 1000 nor more than 10,000 with the view that the numbers were probably at the lower end; i.e. between 1000 and 2000. Some recent work seems to confirm a figure around 1500.
| Author=[[Ken McGrath]]
}}
* '''[[beschneidung-von-jungen.de]]:'''
# "The [[foreskin]] contains 10,000 to 20,000 so-called specialized nerve endings of different types, ..."<ref>https://www.beschneidung-von-jungen.de/home/beschneidung-und-sexualitaet.html</ref> – not documented (not with Sorrel, [[Ken McGrath|McGrath]], Taylor, who only report more sensitivity than the [[Glans penis|glans]] from highly innervated tissue).
# " … a circumcised man actually loses many more than 1000 nerve endings. (About 20000 nerveendings)."<ref>https://www.beschneidung-von-jungen.de/home/medizinisches-grundwissen/anatomie-und-funktion-der-vorhaut/anatomie-und-ondere-komponenten-der-vorhaut/kleiner-schnitt.html</ref> - From the indicated source (Montagu A., Matson F. The Human Connection, NY: McGraw Hill, 1979), no 20,000 can be derived as the number of nerve endings. - The quoted quote is also incomplete: "15 U.S. quarters" are translated with "25-US-Cent coins" without the "15".<ref>See: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:jfxXKByh1GQJ:www.noharmm.org/snip.htm+&cd=5&hl=de&ct=clnk&gl=de</ref>
# "Careful anatomical studies have shown that through circumcision [...] more than 70 m of nerves, and more than 20,000 nerve endings are lost."<ref>https://www.beschneidung-von-jungen.de/home/wichtige-trendumkehr-in-den-usa/wieso-schadet-die-beschneidung.html</ref> – The indicated source<ref>http://www.cirp.org/library/anatomy/bazett/ (THE CIRCUMCISION REFERENCE LIBRARY. ARCHIVES OF NEUROLOGY AND PSYCHIATRY, Vol. 27, Number 3: Pages 489-517, March 1932.)</ref> provides only "Conclusions". The number 20,000 did not appear until 1997 (see below).
* '''FB page of the circumcision forum''': <ref>https://www.facebook.com/beschneidungsforum.de/posts/1785501095046354</ref> It accepts here the page with the empty claim of the "20,000 nerve endings" from the "DocCheck Flexikon"<ref>http://flexikon.doccheck.com/de/Sexuelle_Auswirkungen_der_Zirkumzision (only German version)</ref>: “On average, the [[foreskin]] has about 73m of nerve fibers around 20000 mostly specialized nerve endings ..."
* '''[[Ken McGrath]]''' (Email 5.7.2013 to Stephen Moreton PhD): “No one since about 1923 has published a count of neural receptors in the human [[penis]]. At a conference (1998 in Oxford I think) a group asked me to make an estimate of the number of nerve endings in the prepuce. I did a quick back-of-the-envelope guesstimate based on a fingertip and arrived at an orders of magnitude figure of >1000<10000. … this figure quickly inflated, first to >10,000 and then to >20,000; neither of these is anywhere near the truth, because they are an order of magnitude too high.” (emphasis from the author) http://circfacts.org/sensitivity/
* '''Moreton''': “Unlike 10,000, this one [20,000] has a printed source, though not a credible scientific one. It originated in an article that is still influential amongst intactivists to this day, by the late osteopath Paul Fleiss, published in “Mothering: the magazine of natural family living” (Fleiss, 1997).”