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So called "health" circumcision originated in the nineteenth century, when most diseases were of unknown etiology. Within the miasma of myth and ignorance, a theory emerged that [[masturbation]] caused many and varied ills. It seemed logical to some physicians to perform genital surgery on both sexes to stop [[masturbation]]; the major technique applied to males was circumcision. This was especially true in the English-speaking countries because it accorded with the mid-Victorian attitude toward sex as sinful and debilitating.
The most prolific enumerator of the health benefits of circumcision was Dr. [[Peter Charles Remondino| P. C. Remondino]]. In 1891 this physician claimed that the surgery prevented or cured about a hundred ailments, including alcoholism, epilepsy, asthma, enuresis, hernia, gout, rectal prolapse, rheumatism, kidney disease, and so forth. Such ludicrous claims are still disseminated and possibly believed. The book was reprinted in 1974, without change, and the Circulating Branch Catalogue of the New York Public Library (1983) listed the Remondino book, showing a publication date of 1974. One physician, writing in ''Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality'' (1974), called the book "pertinent and carefully thought out."
Remondino was not the only one expounding such views. In 1911, Dr. Joseph Preuss, in a monumental tome, ''Biblical-Talmudic Medicine'', claimed that Jewish ritual circumcision endowed health benefits; his sole source was Remondino. Some espoused more extreme views; in 1910 an article in J.A.M.A. described a new circumcision clamp. The author/inventor claimed that with this device, the operation was so simple that men and women could now circumcise themselves.
In the 75-year period (1875 to 1950) there was virtually no opposition to routine circumcision in the [[United States]]. Instead there were many articles in medical journals and textbooks extolling the practice; the issue was ignored in the popular press. Yet in the more than a century of acceptance of [[Routine Infant Circumcision| routine circumcision ]] in the English-speaking countries, from 1870 to the present, no other country adopted newborn circumcision.
The first serious questioning of the practice did not occur until late 1949 (in England with the publication of [[Douglas Gairdner|Gairdner]]'s "The Fate of the Foreskin."<ref name="gairdner1949">{{GairdnerDM 1949}}</ref> which began to affect the practice of circumcision by the British. In 1963, an editorial in J.A.M.A. called the attitude of the medical profession paradoxical and confused, and admitted that the facts about circumcision were still unknown. This was followed by several critiques of circumcision such as those by Morgan (1965<ref name="morgan1965">{{REFjournal