[Surgical intervention against overpopulation: Professor Weinhold's foreskin infibulation].

One of the most bizarre and forgotten suggestions to have developed from the discussion of pauperism in the 19th century was the infibulation of the impoverished men. A communication in 1827 from the Halle professor of surgery, Carl August Weinhold (1782-1829), raised indignation and caused ironic as well as angry reactions. Despite such a heated response, Weinhold's proposed method of population control soon fell into oblivion, a fate considered by this contemporaries as "highly desirable".