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Seventh-day Adventist [[John Harvey Kellogg]], M. D.{{MD}}, of Battle Creek, Michigan, was an important 19th century promoter of male circumcision. Although masturbation is never mentioned in the Bible, Dr. Kellogg believed that [[masturbation]] was immoral, sinful, and caused one to dream "impure dreams", which he believed was harmful to the mental faculties, resuling in mental disorders, such as feeblemindness.<ref name="kellogg1879">{{REFbook
|url=https://www.gutenberg.org/files/19924/19924-h/19924-h.htm
|title=Plain Facts for Old and Young: Natural History and Hygiene of Organic Life (Sex, Marriage & Society Series)
|website=Gutenberg
|year=1888
|accessdate=2021-10-03}}</ref> He believed that the urge to masturbate could be prevented by eating bland foods, for which purpose, he and his brother invented corn flakes.
Dr. Kellogg also recommended [[circumcision]] in cases "in which irritation is produced by retained secretions".<ref name="kellogg1879" />
Dr. Kellogg perhaps is most famous for his book, ''Plain facts for young and old'' (1879), in which he advocated circumcision of boys as punishment for masturbation.<ref name="kellogg1879" />
[[Elizabeth Blackwell]], M.D. ̣̻{{MD}}, ({{LifeData|1821-|1910}}), born in England, but attended medical school in the United States. She was the first woman to become a medical doctor in the United States. Blackwell thought masturbation was immoral but that circumcision was not the way to correct it. She wrote against it in her 1894 book:
<blockquote>Appeals to the fears of uninstructed parents on the grounds of cleanliness or of hardening the part are entirely fallacious and unsupported by evidence. It is a physiological fact that the natural lubricating secretion of every healthy part is beneficial, not injurious to the part thus protected, and that no attempt to render a sensitive part insensitive is either practicable or justifiable. The protection which nature affords to these parts is an aid to physical purity by affording necessary protection against constant external contact of a part which necessarily remains keenly sensitive; and bad habits in boys and girls cannot by prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and physical education.<ref>{{REFbook
|first=Elizabeth
}}</ref></blockquote>
[[Peter Charles Remondino]], M. D. {{MD}}, was a San Diego, California physician, who was born in Turin (''Torino'') in 1846, but migrated with his family to the United States at the age of eight. There is some reason to believe that he was of Sephardic Jewish descent and had been circumcised while still in Turin, however this is uncertain.
Remondino clearly was highly intelligent. He mastered English, started medical school at age 17, treated wounded soldiers during the Civil War, and later moved to San Diego for his health.
}}</ref>
[[Abraham L. Wolbarst]], M.D.{{MD}}, a Jewish New York doctor, apparently considered Holt's paper to be an attack on ritual circumcision or perhaps Judaism. He collected ''opinions'' from other doctors of the alleged value of circumcision for health and published those ''opinions'' as ''scientific fact'' in a 1914 ''JAMA'' article.<ref name="wolbarst1914">{{REFjournal
|last=Wolbarst
|first=Abraham L.
|pages=333-4
|accessdate=2021-10-04
}}</ref> <ref name="reruben1917">{{REFjournal
|last=Reuben
|init=MS