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using Template:Wolbarst1932
Circumcision advocates of the past who alleged a relationship between "lack of circumcision" and genital cancers formerly implicated smegma or smegma-borne pathogens as the causative agent. Only two histologic studies of human smegma have ever been conducted, both of which found it to be perfectly harmless.
The hypothesis that human male smegma is carcinogenic was first formulated in 1932 by circumcision promoter [[Abraham L. Wolbarst]], {{MD}}<ref>{{REFjournal |last=Wolbarst |init=AL |author-link=Abraham L. Wolbarst |title=Circumcision and Penile Cancer |journal=The Lancet |date=1932-01-16 |volume=1 |issue=5655 |pages=150-153 |url=https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(01)24346-3/fulltext |DOI=10.1016/S0140-6736(01)24346-3 |accessdate=2019-10-16Wolbarst1932}}</ref> Wolbarst also believed that circumcision prevented epilepsy. (In the early part of the 20th Century, the paroxysm of [[masturbation]] in children was often misidentified as an epileptic seizure.) He wrote: "[Circumcision] diminishes the tendency to [[masturbation]], convulsions and other reflex phenomena of local irritation."
No laboratory or clinical research had been done on the subject at the time. Regardless, Wolbarst's hypothesis about smegma and cancer found its way into early medical textbooks. In the 1950s a few experiments were done to test the hypothesis by injecting horse smegma into wounds made in the backs of mice. There were clinical studies that attempted to induce cancer by introducing smegma subcutaneously and intravaginally: No carcinomas could be induced.