20,862
edits
Changes
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→Universal circumcision as a sanitary measure
This was before the days of evidence-based medicine, when doctors relied on medical ''opinion'', instead of scientific ''evidence''. Wolbarst collected the ''opinions'' of several physicians and published those opinions as evidence for his argument that circumcision prevented diseases. Wolbarst argued that non-therapeutic neonatal circumcision prevented numerous diseases including venereal disease (now known as sexually transmitted disease).
Skeldon (2008) commented:
<blockquote>
At first one might think that there was now a wave of medical evidence supporting the
practice of routine male circumcision, but a closer look shows that most of these claims
were observational and not evidence-based. For instance, in his article “Universal
circumcision as a sanitary measure,” the New York physician Abraham Leo Wolbarst
(1872-1978) argues that circumcision prevents masturbation. During its publication, this
was already a commonly held view and so was not generally questioned. But if one
considers the implications of this, it becomes apparent that to statistically prove such a
claim among young boys would be virtually impossible. This is why Wolbarst’s evidence
</blockquote>
Wolbarst's article appeared on the eve of World War I. It apparently influenced American military commanders to order [[adult circumcision| circumcision]] of military personnel under their command to prevent venereal diseases and improve military readiness.<ref name="hill2002">{{REFweb