You Don't Want to Know: The grisly, jaw-dropping and most macabre moments from history, nature and beyond

by James Felton

‘Right, eating cereal hasn’t worked, time for some genital mutilation.’ Kellogg was the leader of an anti-masturbation movement, and he advocated circumcising boys in the most painful way possible as a means of keeping them from touching themselves. ‘The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic,’ he wrote. ‘As the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases.’ He also favoured sewing the foreskin together with a single wire, to make it impossible to get an erection, tying the victims’ hands together, and placing their genitals in his own patented penis cage. In girls, he preferred enemas, ‘the application of blisters and other irritants to the sensitive parts of the sexual organs’, applying carbolic acid to the clitoris, and, of course, the removal of the clitoris altogether.