Pelikan, professor of forensic medicine in St. Petersburg, published this German version of his treatise on the fanatical Russian Christian sect Skoptsy, known for its practice of castration, clitoridectomies, and mastectomies of its members, the year after it appeared in Russian. "According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the sect still operated within the USSR in 1947.^[14] It is believed to have mostly disappeared by the 1970s,^[15] although there are reports of surviving communities in Latvia in the 1990s.^[16] A small sect of so-called "spiritual Skoptsy" (духовные скопцы), ascetics who do not practice castration, survive in the North Caucasus" (Wikipedia article on Skoptsy, accessed 6-2020).