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This video by Douglas Kiker has appearances by [[Marilyn Milos]], R.N., [[Benjamin Spock]], M.D., and [[Rosemary Romberg| Rosemary Romberg Weiner]].<br>== Discussion ==The continuing practice of [[Routine Infant Circumcision| routine ]] neonatal nonreligious [[circumcision]] represents an enigma, particularly in the [[United States]]. About 80 percent of the world's population do not practice circumcision, nor have they ever done so. Among the non-circumcising nations are Holland, Belgium, France, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Scandinavia, Russia, [[China]], and Japan. People employing [[circumcision ]] do so either for "health" reasons or as a religious ritual practiced by Muslims, Jews, most black Africans, non-white Australians, and others.

|init=E |author-link=Edward Wallerstein

The origin of the ritual practice is unknown. There is evidence of its performance in [[Israel ]] in Neolithic times (with flint knives) at least 6000 6,000 years ago. Jews accept the Old Testament origin as a covenant between God and Abraham(Genesis 17), although it is generally agreed that the practice of circumcision in Egypt predated the [[Abrahamic Covenantcovenant]] by centuries. Ritual Circumcision is not germane to this discussion except insofar as the surgical ritual impinges upon accepted medical practice.

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 alleged 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. ''JAMA'' 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 " non-therapeutic [[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 non-therapeutic 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]] in the [[United Kingdom]]. In 1963, an editorial in ''JAMA'' called the attitude of the medical profession paradoxical and confused, and admitted that the facts about [[circumcision]] were still unknown.<ref>{{REFjournal |last=GairdnerShaw |first=D.M. |init=RA |author-link= |last2=Robertson |first2= |init2=WO |author2-link= |etal=no |title=The fate of the foreskinRoutine Circumcision: a study of circumcisionA Problem for Medicine |trans-title= |language= |journal=British Medical JournalJAMA |location= |date=1963-08 |volume=106 |issue=2 |issuearticle= |page=4642 |pages=1433216-14377 |url=https://wwwpubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc14056822/articles/PMC2051968/pdf/brmedj03656-0009.pdf |archived=

|pubmedID=1540829914056822 |pubmedCID=2051968 |DOI=10.11361001/bmjarchpedi.2.46421963.143302080050218017 |datedoi=1949 |accessdate=20192023-10-2820}}</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

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}}</ref>. In 1968 [[Jakob Øster|Øster]] confirmed [[Douglas Gairdner|Gairdner]]'s findings,<<ref name="Øster1968">{{Template:Jakob_Øster_1968OesterJ 1968}}</ref> as did Reichelderfer and Fraga, who presented a comprehensive study of circumcision. Yet some physicians continued to support [[circumcision ]] for surprising reasons. For example, Dr. Robert P. Bolande, writing in ''[[New England Journal of Medicine|The New England Journal of Medicine]]'' in 1969, compared circumcision with tonsillectomy, calling both procedures "ritualistic," and "widely performed on a non-scientific basis." He opposed routine tonsillectomy but concluded vis-a-vis circumcision: "Little serious objection can actually be raised against circumcision since its adverse effects seem miniscule."<ref>{{REFjournal

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[[Category:Films Film about circumcision and intactivism]][[Category:History]] [[Category:USA]]