History of circumcision: Difference between revisions

Many Americans are surprised to hear that [[circumcision]] (the surgical removal of the foreskin) is uncommon in the western world. Foreigners are often shocked when they first hear that the practice of circumcision even exists in the United States. Circumcision was first introduced in the United States by an anti-sexual Victorian initiative which began during the 1830’s. Numerous publications from the 1830’s to times even as late as the 1970’s had advocated for circumcision as a means to prevent [[masturbation]], and to permanently desensitize, denude, and immobilize the penis.

<ref name="Lallemand">{{REFbook

  |last=Lallemand

  |first=Claude-Francois

  |year=(1):1836; (2):1839; (3):1842

  |title=Des Pertes Seminales Involontaires

  |url=http://books.google.com/books?id=HV4B3UaMUAYC&dq=Des+Pertes+Seminales+Involontaires+1836&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s

  |work=

|pages=(1):463-467; (2):70-162; (3):266-267, 280-289

  |last=Dixon

|first=Edward H.

  |pages=158-165

  |publisher=Stringer & Co

  |isbn=

  |accessdate=2011-06-09

}}</ref><ref name="Moses1871">{{REFjournal

  |last=Moses

  |first=M.J.

  |title=The value of circumcision as a hygienic and therapeutic measure

  |journal=New York Medical Journal

  |date=1871-11

  |volume=14

  |issue=4

  |pages=368-374

  |url=

  |quote=

  |pubmedID=

  |pubmedCID=

  |DOI=

  |accessdate=

}}</ref><ref name="Kellogg1888">{{REFbook

  |title=Plain Facts for Old and Young.

|url=http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/KelPlai.html

|work=

|editor=Project Gutenberg

|edition=1881 edition

|volume=

|chapter=Treatment for Self-Abuse and Its Effects

|location=Burlington, Iowa

|publisher=F. Segner & Co

|isbn=

|quote=

|accessdate=2011-03-21

|note=

}}</ref><ref name="Hutchinson1891">{{REFjournal

  |first=Johnathan

  |first=P.C.

  |first=R.W.

  |first=Allan F.

}}</ref><ref name="MillerSnyder1953">{{REFjournal

}}</ref><ref name="Fishbein1969">{{REFbook

}}</ref><ref>{{REFbook

  |url=

|editor=M.F. Campbell and J.H. Harrison

  |volume= 2

Circumcision advocates quickly moved on to manufacture a number of outrageous health claims. These claims were tailored to the fears and anxieties of the day. Circumcision has been claimed to cure epilepsy, convulsions, paralysis, elephantiasis, tuberculosis, eczema, bed-wetting, hip-joint disease, fecal incontinence, rectal prolapse, wet dreams, hernia, headaches, nervousness, hysteria, poor eyesight, idiocy, mental retardation, insanity, strabismus, hydrocephalus, clubfoot, cancer, STD’s, UTI’s, etc.<ref> F. A. Hodges, "Short History of the Institutionalization of Involuntary Sexual Mutilation in the United States," in G. C. Denniston and M. F. Milos, eds., Sexual Mutilations: A Human Tragedy (New York: Plenum Press, 1997), 35.</ref>

Doctors were eager to claim that they could prevent and cure many of these aliments, conditions and diseases because there were no treatments available then. Even though all of these claims have been throughly discredited, circumcision has remained a solution in search of a problem ever since. Many Americans are surprised to find out that female genital cutting (FGC) shares a strikingly similar history in the United States.  

<ref name="Kellogg1888"/>

<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

<ref name="McFarland1898">{{REFjournal

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<ref name="Dawson1915">{{REFjournal

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<ref name="Eskridge1918">{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

<ref name="McDonald1958">{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

<ref name="Rathmann1959">{{REFjournal

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FGC was even covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield until 1977. Nowadays, many forms of FGC are now considered forms of female genital mutilation (FGM), which are banned in all western countries.

* 1832 [[Claude-Francois Lallemand]] circumcises a patient to '''cure''' him '''from nocturnal seminal emissions''' (i.e. wet dreams).<ref name="Lallemand"/>

* 1855 [[Johnathon Hutchinson]] publishes his theory that circumcision '''prevents syphilis'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |first=Johnathon

  |accessdate=

* 1865 [[Nathaniel Heckford]] claims that circumcision '''cures epilepsy'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1871 [[M.J. Moses]] declares that Jews are '''immune to [[masturbation]] because of circumcision'''.<ref name="Moses1871"/>

* 1873 [[Joseph Bell]] announces his discovery that circumcision '''cures bed wetting'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

 

* 1879 [[H.H. Kane]] 'discovers' that circumcision '''cures nocturnal emissions and abdominal neuralgia'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |last=Kane

|first=H.H.

  |title=Seminal emissions, abdominal neuralgia: circumcision: cure

  |journal=Southern Clinic

  |date=1879-10

  |volume=2

  |issue=1

|pages=8-11

|url=

  |quote=

  |pubmedID=

|DOI=

  |accessdate=

* 1881 [[Maximillian Landesburg]] announces that circumcision '''cures eye problems''' that he believed were '''caused by [[masturbation]]'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1886 [[William G. Eggleston]] declares that '''foreskin causes crossed eyes'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1888 [[John Harvey Kellogg]] promotes '''circumcision as punishment''' for boys to discourage them from masturbating.<ref>{{REFbook

}}</ref>

* 1890 [[William D. Gentry]] declares that circumcision cures blindness, deafness and dumbness.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |date=Jul 1890

* 1891 [[Johnathan Hutchinson]] declares that '''foreskin encourages boys to masturbate'''.<ref name="Hutchinson1891"/>

* 1894 [[P.C. Remondino]] says '''circumcising blacks will help prevent them from raping whites'''.<ref name="Remondino1894"/>

* 1894 [[H.L. Rosenberry]] publishes paper 'proving' that circumcision '''cures urinary and rectal incontinence'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1900 [[Johnathan Hutchinson]] advises circumcision as way to '''decrease the pleasure of sex''', and hence to '''discourage sexual immorality'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |first=Johnathan

* 1901 [[Ernest G. Mark]] notes that the "pleasurable sensations that are elicited from the extremely sensitive" inner lining of the foreskin may encourage a child to masturbate, which is why he recommends circumcision since it "lessens the sensitiveness of the organ". <ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1902 [[Roswell Park]] publishes paper 'proving' that '''foreskin causes epilepsy''' and that circumcision cures it.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1918 [[Belle Eskridge]] concludes circumcision will '''relieve one of the greatest causes of [[masturbation]]''' in girls.<ref name="Eskridge1918"/>

* 1926 [[Abraham L. Wolbarst]] claims that circumcision '''prevents penile cancer'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |pages=301-310

* 1930 [[Norton Henry Bare]] claims that he has cured a boy of '''epilepsy''' by circumcising him.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1934 [[Aaron Goldstein]] and [[Hiram S. Yellen]] invent and mass market the [[Gomco]] clamp which makes it easier for doctors to cut off even more skin than in traditional circumcisions.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1941 [[Allan F. Guttmacher]] promotes mass circumcision as a means of '''blunting male sexual sensitivity'''. He also spreads the false claim that a baby's foreskin must be forcibly retracted and scrubbed daily.<ref name="Guttmacher1941"/>

* 1942 [[Abraham Ravich]] claims that circumcision prevents '''prostate cancer'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

  |pages=341-346

  |pubmedID=

  |DOI=

  |accessdate=

* 1951 [[Abraham Ravich]] invents claims that circumcision prevents '''cervical cancer in women'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1953 [[R.L. Miller]] and [[D.C. Snyder]] unleash their plans to circumcise all male babies immediately after birth while still in the delivery room to '''prevent [[masturbation]]''' and '''provide "immunity to nearly all physical and mental illness."'''<ref name="MillerSnyder1953"/>

* 1954 [[Ernest L. Wynder]] claims that male circumcision '''prevents cervical cancer in women.'''<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1956 [[Raymond Creelman]] invents the [[Circumstraint]] which straps down and immobilizes the baby's arms and legs.<ref>{{REFdocument

* 1958 [[C.F. McDonald]] says "the same reasons that apply for the circumcision of males are generally valid when considered for the female."<ref name="McDonald1958"/>

* 1959 [[W.G. Rathmann]] finds that among the many benefits of female circumcision is that it will '''make the clitoris easier for the husband to find'''.<ref name="Rathmann1959"/>

* 1966 Masters and Johnson claim that there is '''no difference in sensitivity between penises with and without foreskin'''.<br>(Note: Their work helps propagate the medical dogma that circumcision has no effect on sexuality go practically unquestioned for nearly the next four decades.)<ref>{{REFbook

  |last=Masters and Johnson

  |location=Boston, Ma

  |publisher=Little Brown & Co

* 1971 [[Abraham Ravich]] claims that circumcision prevents cancer of the bladder and the rectum.<ref>{{REFjournal

}}</ref>

* 1971 The [[American Academy of Pediatrics]] Committee on Fetus and Newborn issues a warning to the Nation that, "There are no valid medical indications for circumcision in the neonatal period."<ref>{{REFbook

* 1973 [[R. Dagher]], [[Melvin Selzer]], and [[Jack Lapides]] declare that anyone who disagrees with their agenda to impose mass circumcision on America is deluded.<ref>{{REFjournal

  |first=R.

  |last2=Selzer

  |last3=Lapides

  |year=

* 1986 [[Aaron J. Fink]] claims that circumcision '''prevents AIDS'''.<ref>{{REFjournal

* 1996 [[J.R. Taylor]] finds that the average amount of amputated foreskin was nearly half of the total penile skin.<ref>{{REFjournal

|date=1996-02

}}</ref>

* 1997 [[Janice Lander]] discovers that '''circumcision without anesthesia is traumatic for babies'''.<br>(Note: Before this, almost all infant circumcisions were done without anesthetic due to the prevalent belief among circumcisers that babies are not capable of feeling significant pain and if they could it doesn't matter since they won't be able to remember it.)<ref>{{REFjournal

|date=1997-12

}}</ref>

  |first=J.R.

::'''STDs including HIV:''' "behavioral factors appear to be far more important than circumcision status."

::'''Penile Cancer:''' "in a developed country such as the United States, penile cancer is a rare disease and the risk of penile cancer developing in an uncircumcised man, although increased compared with a circumcised man, is low."

::'''Urinary Tract Infections:''' "breastfeeding was shown to have a threefold protective effect on the incidence of UTI in a sample of uncircumcised infants. However, breastfeeding status has not been evaluated systematically in studies assessing UTI and circumcision status." meaning that the earlier UTIs studies results were confounded. Even if their numbers were accurate, in order to prevent one UTI during the first year of life by circumcising a baby boy, approximately 195 babies who will not get a UTI would need to be circumcised. Also infant girls commonly develop UTIs(in some studies at even higher rates than infant boys) and the standard treatment for them is antibiotics which works just as well for infant boys with UTIs. The AAP concludes this section noting that "the absolute risk of developing a UTI in an uncircumcised male infant is low (at most, ~1%)".