In icting their practices on defenseless children is another matter. Distraught medical personnel often have to go to court to obtain routine treatment for such children. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, it was the practice of the Italian Catholic clergy to castrate boys who showed great vocal promise. These young eunuchs were thus able to continue as powerful male sopranos since they were forever prepubescent. Competent medical authorities now assert that circumcision has no medical value except in rare cases.
Ritual circumcision occurs in the rst two weeks of life.
It is a most painful ceremony, performed without anesthesia, on one who is too young to understand its purported aim. This ritual genital mutilation belies the often conventional religious belief that man was created in the image of God. However dreadful this religious rite is, it is as nothing compared to female genital mutilation, performed on prepubescent girls, which is the practice of many African and Middle Eastern Muslims. This horrible ritual involves the surgical removal of the inner labia and the clitoris. It is ordinarily performed without anesthesia and with instruments that are not sterile.