Abstract
Aposthia is a rare congenital condition in humans, in which the foreskin of the penis is completely missing in a normally developed penis and urethra. Almost all mammal penises have a foreskin which called the preputial sheath or penile sheath into which the whole penis is retracted, only monotremes (platypus and echidna) completely lack foreskins. It is suggested that the extensive study on aposthia may be helpful for proper understanding of the impaction of circumcision in health and reducing the controversy in medical sciences about it, as cases of aposthia could raise a couple of questions which deserve further researches:
-
Is circumcised “aposthic” penis is the natural normal penis and having a prepuce is a pathological condition which should be treated by its removal?
-
Is aposthia a feature of the dignified leader or the first man “Adam”, and circumcision is a ritual trial to have a copy or similarity to the symbolic leader?
-
Aposthia being a quantitative recessive trait, as had been suggested by some researchers, may be prevalent in certain ancient healthy and comparatively developed inbred population isolates.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Martin RD. Primate origins and evolution: a phylogenetic reconstruction. Princeton: Princeton University Press; 1990. p. 42–3.
Kim DS, Lee JY, Pang MG. Male circumcision: a Korean perspective. BJU Int. 1999;83(1):28–33.
Talbot ES. Inheritance of circumcision effects. Medicine. 1898;4:473–5.
Amin Ud Din M, Salam A, Rafiq MA, Khaliq I, Ansar M, Ahmad W. Aposthia: a birth defect or normal quantitative recessive human genetic trait? East Mediterr Health J. 2007;13(2):280–6.
Parkash S, Jeyakumar K, Subramanya K, Chaudhuri S. Human subpreputial collection: its nature and formation. J Urol. 1973;110(2):211–2.
Garcia-Palacios M, et al. Congenital absence of preputial foreskin: an extremely uncommon anomaly. J Pediatr Surg. 2013;48:E13–5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpedsurg.2012.10.072.
Liu X, Liu G, Shen J, Yue A, Isaacson D, Sinclair A, Cao M, Liaw A, Cunha GR, Baskin L. Human glans and preputial development. Differentiation. 2018;103:86–99. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.diff.2018.08.002.
Gleniste TW. A consideration of the processes involved in the development of the prepuce in man. Br J Urol. 1956;28:243–9.
Fahmy MA. Chapter 15: Reconstructive surgery for circumcision complications. In: Complications in male circumcision. St. Louis: Elsevier; 2019. https://doi.org/10.1016/C2018-0-03679-8.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Fahmy, M.A.B. (2020). Aposthia. In: Normal and Abnormal Prepuce. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37621-5_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-37621-5_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-37620-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-37621-5
eBook Packages: MedicineMedicine (R0)