Circumcision

The essay on circumcision in the January 2010 issue of the BJGP was very interesting.¹ Certainly as far as the Jewish relationship to the topic is concerned it was well informed and demonstrated much insight. However, there is one aspect of the Jewish tradition that was not mentioned and that is the considerable grasp of the genetics of haemophilia displayed in the laws relating to circumcision. If a mother is unlucky enough to lose two sons from failure of the penile wound to stop bleeding, then the commandment to circumcise is abolished for any subsequent sons. However, not only is this exemption applied to the children of that mother, but if any sister of that mother produces a son or sons then circumcision should not take place. However, the children of any brothers of the afflicted mother's progeny are not exempt, nor so for the children of any of the father's siblings. This set of rules clearly demonstrates an understanding that the bleeding disorder is transmitted through the mother's genetic contribution.

Had the advisers to the Russian Royal House, descendants of Queen Victoria, been equally well informed, the course of European modern history might have been quite different!

Of course with modern treatments available and males with haemophilia now able to survive to reproductive age, the genetic pattern may be modified, but this does not diminish respect for the powers of observation possessed by the early semitic tribes who established the original rules.