Robert Darby

Robert J. L. Darby BA, B Litt, PhD (died March 2019 in Canberra, ACT, Australia) was an independent scholar and freelance writer from Canberra, the capital of Australia. He began his writing and research career as a literary historian, with a PhD on Australian literature and politics in the 1960s, but his interests have broadened since then to include many topics in cultural, social and medical history, as well as ethics and current affairs. His major published work so far has been a detailed account of the rise and fall of routine "health" circumcision in Britain (A surgical temptation, 2005), and since then he has written widely on medical, historical and ethical aspects of both male and female circumcision - which he regard as primarily a human rights and social justice issue, not really a medical issue at all. He is also author of "The sorcerer's apprentice: Why can't the United States stop circumcising boys?"

He also prepared a collection of the medical writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Round the Red Lamp (Valancourt Books, 2007), and an edited edition of Elements of Social Science by the great Victorian iconoclast George Drysdale.

Publications

• Darby, Robert. Been There, Done That: Thoughts on the proposition that yet more circumcision can save the world from AIDS. Australian Quarterly. September 2002; 74(5): 26-35. Retrieved 8 May 2021.

• Robert, Darby. The masturbation taboo and the rise of routine male circumcision: A review of the historiography. J Soc Hist. 2003; 36: 737-57. Retrieved 2 May 2021.

• Darby, Robert. Pathologizing Male Sexuality: Lallemand, Spermatorrhea, and the Rise of Circumcision. Journal of the History of Medicine. July 2005; 60: 283-319. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 8 May 2021.

• Darby, Robert J.L. (2005): A surgical temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin & the Rise of Circumcision in Britain. University of Chicago Press.

• Darby, Robert, Cozijn, John. The British Royal Family’s Circumcision Tradition: Genesis and Evolution of a Contemporary Legend. Sage. 16 October 2013; DOI. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
• Darby, Robert J.L. (2013): The sorcerer's apprentice: Why can't the United States stop circumcising boys?. Kindle.
• Darby RJL. The child's right to an open future: Is the principle applicable to non-therapeutic circumcision. Journal of Medical Ethics. 18 June 2013; 39: 415-415. DOI. Retrieved 5 January 2020.
• PubMed articles: Darby RJ[au], PubMed. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
• Google Scholar articles: 'author:Robert J L Darby', Google Scholar. Retrieved 16 March 2020.

See also

• History of Circumcision

External links

• Facebook profile. Retrieved 26 September 2019.
• History of Circumcision, CIRP. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
• http://www.historyofcircumcision.com/. Retrieved 16 March 2020.
• Robert Darby (author page), Amazon. Retrieved 16 March 2020.