Lewis Albert Sayre
Lewis Albert Sayre (29 February 1820 – 21 September 1900) was a leading American physician and orthopedic surgeon of the 19th century. Sayre was a principal founder of the Bellevue Hospital Medical College and of the American Medical Association, of which he was elected vice-president in 1866, and president in 1880.
Sayre is famous for having performed the first male circumcision for medical treatment in the United States. Sayre (1870) published a paper to report his apparent success in curing a boy of paralysis by cirumcision.[1] Sayre (1870) also published a paper to report his apparent success in curing epilepsy by circumcision.[2]
Sayre (1875) published a paper to report that the foreskin causes curvature of the spine, paralysis of the bladder, and clubfoot.[3]
Thereafter he continued to promote male circumcision for the rest of his life. Gollaher (1994) reported:
For the better part of three decades, until his death in 1900, he continued zealously to promote circumcision, discovering an amazingly wide array of benefits connected with the operation. Not only orthopedic problems, but epilepsy, hernia, and even lunacy appeared to respond. In 1875 he issued a pamphlet, Spinal Anemia with Partial Paralysis and Want of Co-operation from Irritation of the Genital Organs, in which he proposed that "peripheral irritation" from the foreskin could produce "an insanity of the muscles," the muscles acting "on their own account, involuntarily... without the controlling power of the person's brain."[4]
Sayre died in New York City on September 21, 1900 at the age of eighty.
See also
References
- ↑
Sayre, Lewis A.. Partial paralysis from reflex irritation, caused by congenital phimosis and adherent prepuce. Transactions of the American Medical Association. 1870; 21: 205-211.
- ↑ Sayre, Lewis A.. Circumcision versus epilepsy, etc; Transcription of the New York Pathological Society meeting of June 8, 1870. Medical Record. 15 July 1870; 5(10): 231-234.
- ↑ Sayre, Lewis A.. Spinal anaemia with partial paralysis and want of coordination, from irritation of the genital organs. Transactions of the American Medical Association. 1875; 26: 255-274.
- ↑ Gollaher, David L.. From ritual to science: the medical transformation of circumcision in America. Journal of Social History. September 1994; 28(1): 5-36. Retrieved 23 May 2020.
