Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall].

  • Dingwall, Eric John.
Date:
1925
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Male infibulation / [Eric John Dingwall]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    baldness are excesses in Baccho et Venere, mentions the fact that Gumer compiled a long list of bald Emperors and Kings who had distinguished themselves by their dissipated habits, numbering amongst them Tiberius, Claudius, Galba, Commodus and Henry III of France.1 In certain cases the membrum is drawn upward and slightly bent, as if a case of priapism was intended to be shown.2 This is probably a variation of the usual form, and it is extremely interesting to note how the devil, as he is described when appearing at the witches’ Sabbaths, is supposed to have a similar bent and twisted member. Thus L’Ancre in his remarkable description of the debauches says that the devil’s membrum is called by an observer “ entortitle et siniieux en forme de serpent ”8 whilst the same feature has been noticed in rude drawings of Robin Goodfellow on early English printed ballads.4 In a few cases the bent and curved phallus is found in the case of negro slaves and the British Museum possesses a beautiful example of this variety in the collection of Greek and Roman antiquities. It is a bronze statuette of a young negro, 9J in. high and of the late Republican or early Imperial Roman period. Found in Perugia, it was presented in 1908 by Mr. W. C. 1 T. Robinson, Baldness and Greyness (4th ed., London, 1902), p. 56. With this notion may well be compared the belief that a large nose is symbolic of a large member, and thus is often connected with excessive amorous propensities. Cf. A. Beccadelli, Panormita, L' Hermaphrodite (Paris, 1892), p. 12; G. J. A. Witkowski, La generation humaine (5e 6d., Paris, 1884), p. 42. 3 Cf. Comte de Caylus, Recueil d'antiguites (7 vols., Paris, 1752- 67), iv, pi. 24, nr. v, and G. B. Piranesi, Vasi, candelabri . . . (2 vols. [Paris, c. 1836]), pi. 53. 3 P. de L’Anore, Tableau de Vinconstance des mauvais anges et demons (Paris, 1613), p. 224. * R. P. Knight, A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus ... to which is added an essay on the worship of the generative powers during the Middle Ages of Western Europe (London, 1865), pi. xxxvii (wrongly numbered xxxvi), nr. 2.