United Kingdom
Construction Site
This article is work in progress and not yet part of the free encyclopedia IntactiWiki.
The United Kingdom (UK) was the scene of early efforts to promote male circumcision. It influenced the adoption of male circumcision in other English-speaking nations. Later it was the scene of efforts to reduce and eliminate the practice.
While Jews reding in the UK practiced ritual circumcision of boys on the eighth day of life in accordance with the Abrahamic covenant, the practice was nearly unknown among gentiles.
Introduction of circumcision as a medical practice
French physician Claude-François Lallemand (1790 – 1854) recommended circumcision as a treatment for spermatorrhea (excessive, involuntary ejaculation), which was then believed to be a disease. Lallemand influenced later English physicians such as William Acton.[1]
Edward H. Dixon (1845) advocated circumcision to prevent masturbation.[2]
Sir Jonathan Hutchinson (1828 – 1913) was an English surgeon, dermatologist, ophthalmologist, pathologist and venereologist.[3] Darby describes Hutchinson as a puritanical and gloomy Quaker who disapproved of masturbation on moral grounds.[4] Sir Jonathan advocated circumcision to prevent syphilis.[5]
Nathaniel Heckford, a pediatrician at the East London Hospital for Children, wrote Circumcision as a Remedial Measure in Certain Cases of Epilepsy, Chorea, etc. (1865), in which he argued that circumcision acted as an effective remedial measure in the prevention of certain cases of epilepsy and chorea.[6]
Sir Jonathan Hutchinson started to promote circumcision to prevent masturbation in 1890.[4] He first published A Plea for Circumcison,[7], followed by On circumcision as a preventive of masturbation.[8]
Sir Jonathan was not yet done. He published yet another article On Circumcision in 1893.[9]
Sir Frederick Treves (1853 – 1923), a prominent Harley Street surgeon, who is known to us by The Elephant Man film, wrote an operative manual in 1903 to educate other surgeons in the performance of the circumcision amputation.[10] The practice of male circumcision was now well established in the United Kingdom.
The royal family and circumcision
References
- ↑
Darby, Robert. Pathologizing Male Sexuality: Lallemand, Spermatorrhea, and the Rise of Circumcision. J Hist Med Allied Sci. July 2005; 60(3): 283-319. PMID. DOI. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
- ↑
Dixon, Edward H. (1845): A Treatise on Diseases of the Sexual Organs. New York: Stringer & Co. Pp. 158-165. Retrieved 9 June 2011.
- ↑
Zhang, Gary (2020). Jonathan Hutchinson
, Life in the Fast Lane. Retrieved 4 September 2021. - ↑ a b Darby, Robert.
The crotchets of Sir Jonathan Hutchinson
, The History of Circumcision. Retrieved 4 September 2021. - ↑ Hutchinson, Jonathon. On the Influence of Circumcision in Preventing Syphilis. Medical Times and Gazette. 1855; 32(844): 542-543. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
- ↑ Heckford N. Circumcision as a remedial measure in certain cases of epilepsy and chorea. Clinical Lectures and Reports by the Medical and Surgical Staff of the London Hospital. 1865; 2: 58-64.
- ↑ Hutchinson, Jonathan. A plea for circumcision. Archives of Surgery. 1890; II: 15. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
- ↑ Hutchinson, Jonathan. On circumcision as a preventive of masturbation. Archives of Surgery. 1890; II: 267-9. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
- ↑ Hutchinson, Jonathan. On circumcision. Archives of Surgery. 1893; IV: 379-80. Retrieved 4 August 2021.
- ↑ Treves, Frederick (1903):
Chapter VI
, in: Circumcision. Work: A Manual of Operative Surgery, II.. London: Cassell. Pp. 670-3. Retrieved 4 September 2021.
