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===Search for prophylactic reasons===
The practice of finding prophylactic reasons for infant circumcision started in Germany in the nineteenth century, when Christian non-Jewish Germans criticized the Jewish practice of infant circumcisionas being barbaric, Jewish doctors sprang to the defense of the religious practice by claiming health benefits.<ref name="ephron2001">{{REFbook
|last=Ephron
|first=John M.
|issue=4
|pages=301-10
}}</ref>, in . In the 1940s, prostate and tongue cancer as well as STDs. Eugene H. Hand (1949) falsely explains that circumcision somehow protects against venereal diseases and tongue cancer.<ref name="hand1949">{{REFjournal
|title=Circumcision and venereal disease.
|last=Hand
|pubmedID=14853120
|accessdate=2019-10-12
}}</ref></ref>, in . In the late 1960s it was neuroses. Morris Fishbein (1969) calls for circumcision to prevent nervousness and, of course, [[masturbation]].<ref>{{REFbook
|last=Fishbein
|first=Morris
|url=https://openlibrary.org/works/OL95362W/Modern_home_medical_adviser
|accessdate=2019-10-12
}}</ref></ref>, in In the 1970s bladder- and rectal cancer. Abraham Ravich (1971) claims that circumcision would prevent bladder cancer and rectal cancer.<ref>{{REFjournal
|last=Ravich
|first=Abraham
|pages=1493-1496
|accessdate=2019-10-12
}}</ref></ref>
In the 1980s, UTIs. Thomas E. Wiswell (1985) claims that circumcision, using a methodologically flawed report, reduces the risk of urinary tract infections.<ref name="wiswell1985">{{REFjournal
}}</ref>
Aaron J. Fink (1986) , with no evidence whatsoever, claims that circumcision protects against AIDSfollowed.<ref name="fink1986">{{REFjournal
|last=Fink
|first=Aaron J.
|DOI=10.1056/NEJM198610303151818
|accessdate=2019-11-20
}}</ref></ref> followed. Retrospectively, circumcision was always advertised as a cure for whatever disease was in the public spotlight at the time.
The sheer mass of studies and publications that were released during those almost 180 years on this topic are the reason that even arguments that have been disproved multiple times, especially regarding infant and child circumcision, tenaciously persist up until today.