The Rise and Fall of the Penis By Mels van Driel - 1

'In the last few decades,’ writes the Dutch urologist Mels van Driel on the first page of this book, 'tens of thousands of penises and testicles have been through my hands. Eventually one feels the urge to dig deeper.’ The wording is a little alarming, but what he means by digging more deeply, it turns out, is exploring the non-medical dimensions of the subject. How have our ideas about the male genitalia been influenced by culture, history, literature and religion?

Why is it, for example, that in China and south-east Asia there is a form of impotence so common that it has its own name, 'koro’, referring to the withdrawal of the head of a tortoise? This is a psychiatric syndrome in which the patient becomes convinced that his penis is shrinking and will gradually disappear into his abdomen, thereby causing his death; something in the culture must be causing this notion, which is an extreme rarity in Western societies.

Why is it that seeing men’s genitals in public was acceptable in ancient Greece (at least, at the gymnasium and the athletics field) and unacceptable in Christian societies, although in late medieval Europe the implausibly large codpiece became a popular fashion item? Why did so many people in Renaissance Europe believe that witches had sexual intercourse with the devil, whose penis – according to testimony accepted in court – was scaly or barbed, stone-hard, ice-cold and sometime double-pronged?

One would indeed have to dig into the deepest strata of cultural history and anthropology to frame answers to these questions. Van Driel, however, has done no such thing. Instead, he just mentions these topics in passing, picking out a memorable detail or two before moving on to another oddity of history, culture or biology.

Eventually, one begins to see that these details are merely decorative. The main body of this book is what you would expect a urologist to write: a straightforward account, for the general reader, of how the male genital organs function and how they can go wrong. There are chapters on testosterone and on the ailments of the scrotum; there are discussions of circumcision, castration and vasectomy. This may be the only book I shall ever read that can solemnly state, in the Introduction: 'Men and women contemplating sterilisation will find this book particularly useful.’