As instruments of excision the hot iron, pieces of glass, old wire, sharpened bone, and old razors are used.

Only nine fatal cases resulting from the operation are known.

At St.Petersburg Liprandi knew a rich Skoptzy who constantly kept girls--mostly Germans--for his own gratification, soon after having entered into the "first purification." Few of them were able to remain with him over a year, and they always returned to their homes with health irretrievably lost.

Women members of the order do not have their ovaries removed, but mutilation is practiced upon the external genitals, the mammae, and nipples.

The first ablation is obtained by applying fire or caustics to the nipples, the second by amputation of the breasts, one or both, the third by diverse gashes, chiefly across the breast, and the fourth by resection of the nymphae or of the nymphae and clitoris, and the superior major labia, the cicatrices of which would deform the vulva.