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In the 75-year period (1875 to 1950) there was virtually no opposition to routine circumcision in the United States. Instead there were many articles in medical journal and textbooks extolling the practice; the issue was ignored in the popular press. Yet in the more than a century of acceptance of routine circumcision in the English-speaking countries, from 1870 to the present, no other country adopted 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."17 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.14 This was followed by several critiques of circumcision such as those by Morgan (1965 and 1967)38 and Preston (1970).45 In 1968 Øster confirmed Gairdner's findings,42 as did Reichelderfer and Fraga,49 who presented a comprehensive study of circumcision. Yet some physicians continued to support circumcision for surprising reasons. For example, Dr. Robert P. Boland, writing in 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."5
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