Crosspost "The History of Medicalized Circumcision Part 3: 1900-1939" from /r/Intactivism:
In his essay, "Circumcision: The Uniquely American Medical Enigma" (1985), medical historian Ed Wallerstein explained this period of history briefly:
"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 Gairdner's "The Fate of the Foreskin" 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 and 1967) and Preston (1970). In 1968 Øster confirmed Gairdner's findings, 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 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-à-vis circumcision: "Little serious objection can actually be raised against circumcision since its adverse effects seem miniscule."
Unfortunately there was not yet any research on the function of the foreskin to understand the harm in it more clearly.
1900: ~30% of the newborn American male population is circumcised and 18% of adult men
1900 Jonathan Hutchinson advised circumcision as way to decrease the pleasure of sex hoping to discourage sexual immorality. He also recommended genital cutting as a way of avoiding teaching a child about hygiene because "the practice [of hygiene] would be injurious to the morals of the child." [The advantages of circumcision. The Polyclinic. — summarized in International Medical Magazine]
1900 An editor writes the following:
"Finally, circumcision probably tends to increase the power of sexual control. The only physiological advantage which the prepuce can be supposed to confer is that of maintaining the penis in a condition susceptible to more acute sensation than would otherwise exist. It may increase the pleasure of intercourse and the impulse to it: but these are advantages which in the present state of society can well be spared. If in their loss increase in sexual control should result, one should be thankful."
[Medical News. Our London Letter. Medical World,(1900).vol.77:pp.707-8.]
1900 M. O. Terry, an Orificial Surgical Society member, reported seven cases of "insanity" cured with emulsified animal brains or orificial work, including prepucectomy for both men and girls, rectal dilation, and even one use of clitoridectomy for a case of insanity with masturbation. [On the cure of insanity by the operative procedure: Reflex action to the brain from pathological organs now recognized as a frequent cause of insanity. J Orificial Surgery.]
1900 E. Harding Freeland writes:
"It has been urged as an argument against the universal adoption of circumcision that the removal of the protective covering of the glans tends to dull the sensitivity of that exquisitly sensitive structure and thereby diminishes sexual appetite and the pleasurable effects of coitus. Granted that this be true, my answer is that, whatever may have been the case in days gone by, sensuality in our time needs neither whip nor spur, but would be all the better for a little more judicious use of curb and bearing-rein."
[Circumcision as a Preventative of Syphilis and Other Disorders, The Lancet, vol. 2 (29 Dec. 1900): pp.1869-1871.]
1901 Ernest G. Mark noted the following:
"Another advantage of circumcision... is the lessened liability to masturbation. A long foreskin is irritating per se, as it necessitates more manipulation of the parts in bathing... This leads the child to handle the parts, and as a rule, pleasurable sensations are elicited from the extreamly sensitive mucous membrane, with resultant manipulation and masturbation. The exposure of the glans penis following circumcision ... lessens the sensitiveness of the organ... It therefore lies with the physician, the family adviser in affairs of hygiene and medical, to urge its acceptance."
[Circumcision. Am Practitioner and News, vol. 31 (1901): p. 231.]
1901 A. S. Waiss reported applying his knowledge of male phimosis to the female and "a narrow strip of skin and mucous membrane was removed with scissors" from an 18 year-old girl with "abnormally long" prepuce to "cure" her of masturbating and social anxiety. [Reflex neuroses from adherent prepuce in the female. J Orificial Surgery.]
An example of the tools used for orificial surgery at this time.
1902 Elizabeth Blackwell continues her opposition against infant circumcision despite it's growing popularity and acceptance.
"A serious warning against the unnatural practice of circumcision must here be given. A book of 'Advice to Mothers,' by a Philadelphia doctor, was lately sent me. This treatise began by informing the mother that her first duty to her infant boy was to cause it to be circumcised! Her fears were worked upon by an elaborate but false statement of the evils which would result to the child were this mutilation not performed. I should have considered this mischievous instruction unworthy of serious consideration did I not observe that it has lately become common among certain short-sighted but reputable physicians to laud this unnatural practice, and endeavour to introduce it into a Christian nation.
Circumcision is based upon the erroneous principle that boys—i.e., one-half the human race—are so badly fashioned by Creative Power that they must be reformed by the surgeon; consequently, that every male child must be mutilated by removing the natural covering with which Nature has protected one of the most sensitive portions of the human body.
The erroneous... custom (which originated amongst licentious nations in hot climates) has been carried on for many hundred generations...
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 be prevented by surgical operations. Where no malformation exists, bad habits can only be forestalled by healthy moral and physical education.
The plea that this unnatural practice will lessen the risk of infection to the sensualist in promiscuous intercourse is not one that our honourable profession will support.
Parents, therefore, should be warned that this ugly mutilation of their children involves serious danger, both to their physical and moral health."
[Essays in Medical Sociology. 1902.]
1902 Roswell Park recommended "radical operations" to cure epilepsy including circumcision. [The surgical treatment of epilepsy. Am Med. — summarized in The International Journal of Surgery]
1902 P. C. Remondino claimed infant circumcision is just like a vaccine so opponents of non-therapeutic circumcision "may be likened to the anti-vaccinationists". [Circumcision and its opponents. Am J Derm and Genito-Urinary Dis.]
1903 Brandsford Lewis advocates that boys be circumcised at birth to prevent them from masturbating in the future:
"Boys ought to be circumcised -- the permanent and tempting invitation to masturbation in the form of the foreskin being removed in their early infancy, before sexual feelings are experienced, and the vicious counsel of other boys is received... There is some reason, then, and excuse as well, why boys should be boys, endowed as they are with anatomical conditions, as well as traits, calculated to lead them astray."
[A Plain Talk on Matters Pertaining to Genito-Urinary Anatomy, Physiology and Diseases (Part 1). American Journal of Dermatology and Genito-Urinary Diseases 1903;7:201-209.]
1910: ~42% of the newborn American male population is circumcised and 22% of adult men
1910 Elizabeth Hamilton-Muncie's Four Epochs of Life was published. The title was nearly identical to Anna Mary Galbraith's The Four Epochs of Woman's Life: A study in hygiene (1901), but unlike Galbraith who never mentioned genital cutting, Hamilton-Muncie was one of Pratt's Orificial Surgical Society members, who like others extolled the virtues of female genital cutting at length. According to Rinehart (1921), Dr. Hamilton-Muncie regularly applied court-ordered corrective genital surgeries to those who were convicted of an act of sexual deviancy in New York. [Muncie EH. Four Epochs of Life. Self-published/Gospel Publishing House. 1910.]
1910 Of Kistler (1910), Wallerstein (1985) wrote, "an article in J.A.M.A. 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."
1911 "Dr. Joseph Preuss, in a monumental tome, Biblical-Talmudic Medicine, claimed that Jewish ritual circumcision endowed health benefits; his sole source was Remondino" (Wallerstein 1985).
1912 Douglas H. Stewart in New York City saw a “fairly robust woman” who, though desirous for sexual intercourse, when the act was attempted found “there ‘was nothing in it.’” Upon examination, Stewart found the clitoris of the patient to be “buried” and preceded to circumcise the woman to reveal the organ. [mentioned in S.B. Rodriguez]
1912 Lyndon G. Frank promotes circumcision for cleanliness, health, and preventing masturbation.
"Circumcision promotes cleanliness, prevents disease, and by reducing oversensitiveness of the parts tends to relieve sexual irritability, thus correcting any tendancy which may exist to improper manipulations of the genital organs and the consequent acquirement of evil sexual habits, such as masturbation."
[Sex Hygiene for the Male. Chicago: Riverton Press, 1912.]
1912 Benjamin E. Dawson published Orificial Surgery: It's philosophy, application and technique, a 650-page substantial textbook length work. It included Pratt's "Circumcision of Girls" and Elizabeth Muncie's "Preputial Adhesions in Little Girls" as chapters 63 and 64.
1914 Abraham Wolbarst said that circumcision "should be encouraged in every possible case, whether it be done as a ritual act or as a purely sanitary measure." Finding statistics that suggest circumcised men were at increased risk of gonorrhea and decreased risk of syphilis, Wolbarst ignored the former fact concluding that "universal circumcision is, in my opinion, an absolute necessity, when we consider the general welfare of the race." He also valued circumcision for preventing masturbation: Circumcision "offers a diminished tendency to masturbation, nocturnal pollutions, convulsions and other nervous results of local irritation." [Universal circumcision as a sanitary measure. JAMA.]
1914 James Brown Thornton replied to Wolbarst's enthusiastic plea for non-therapeutic foreskin destruction for all infants:
"I believe that there are many of us who do not fully agree with Dr. Wolbarst in his sweeping denunciation of non-circumcision [intact foreskin]. Obviously, this operation is indicated when phimosis exists, and the earlier the better. It is also indicated in elongated conditions of the prepuce, even if not constricted. [Hypertrophy is a true deformity.] Most excellent reasons have been advanced for the operation in such cases. But in the man whose foreskin is of such character as partly, or even wholly, to cover the glans when the penis is in a quiescent state, but automatically withdraws at the time of sexual excitement, I can see no valid reason for mutilating the penile organ. An exception might be made to this view of the matter in those who are neglectful of all laws of cleanliness and hygiene, but in this class circumcision is only one of a number of local attentions indicated, provided so extreme a method becomes necessary to keep such part of the person's anatomy clean."
[Correspondence. JAMA.]
1914 H. H. Hazen recommended circumcision as a method of limiting the spread of syphilis among the African-American community. Claiming the race had heightened sexual desire he wrote, "all male babies should be circumcised, both for the purpose of avoiding local irritation which will increase the sexual appetite and for preventing [syphilis] infection." [Syphilis in the American Negro. JAMA.]
1914 Rowland Freeman explained the popular concern of the day with infant masturbation in girls and female circumcision (prepucectomy) as the only treatment:
"The masturbation of female infants while not common occurs with moderate frequency and is a condition which if neglected leads to a considerable amount of depravity. It may be controlled by proper treatment. In the female infant there exists fairly regularly marked adhesions between the sensitive clitoris and the surrounding tissues so that on examination the clitoris is frequently found to be buried in these adhesions. In a normal robust child they seem to cause little irritation but in the nervous, sensitive child they may cause intense irritation and lead to the formation of a habit [of masturbation] which, if untreated, may become permanent and exert a most injurious influence over the future development of the child. … The only curative treatment is that applied to the removal of the source of irritation, the adhesions of the clitoris. These may be separated without the use of an anesthetic. The operation under these conditions is very painful and is apt to be followed by the formation of other adhesions. The only satisfactory method of treating this condition is by circumcision, an operation which should be performed by one accustomed to doing it, the [clitoral] foreskin being removed as completely as possible."
[Circumcision in Masturbation in Female Infants American Journal of Obstetrics and Diseases of Women and Children]
1914 J. A. Burnett. of London wrote:
"Circumcision has been practiced for ages and has an interesting history. Most every one has heard of male circumcision but many have never even heard of female circumcision. It is now a well established fact that female circumcision is as important as male circumcision. Many physicians do not know anything of the value of male circumcision except when it interferes with passing the water. Circumcision is of most value in both male and female to prevent reflex conditions. In order to understand the value one must know something of both nervous systems and reflex actions. In some eye troubles circumcision is of value. Dr. C. A. Weirick reported a case of partial atrophy of the optic nerve in a man aged 34 years. The case was of eight years' duration. He could not see to read except large print, and then but a few minutes at a time. In one month after circumcision he was able to read a page of small print without any unpleasant results. I could go on and on, and mention cases of nervousness, convulsions, bed wetting, stomach trouble—as well as a great many other diseases that have been cured by circumcision of both sexes."
[Burnett JA. Circumcision. California Eclectic Medical Journal. v.7. 1914.]
1915 J. A. Burnett of London wrote:
"In my opinion, circumcision is more important for children than adults. This seems to have been known long ago, and early circumcision has been practiced by the Jews for centuries.
I do not find any reference in the Bible to female circumcision, but it has been practiced for many years in different parts of the world. It is now an established fact by physicians who have devoted special attention to orificial surgery that female circumcision is as important or more important than male circumcision. In Dr. B. E. Dawson's "Orificial Surgery" (1912), E. H. Pratt, the founder of orificial surgery has a chapter on "Circumcision of Girls." If anyone will read even the first and second paragraphs in Dr. Pratt's chapter, they can see that female circumcision is really more important than male circumcision.
Only a few days ago I received a letter from an old physician who had learned the value of female circumcision by an accident when he was a medical student. He had been doing the operation for several years with good results in a large number of conditions. He stated he had never been able to find any literature on the subject in any book or journal. There is quite a lot of literature on female circumcision scattered through various books and journals; still the average physician outside of orificial surgeons could not point out half a dozen articles on the subject. Personally, I am a strong believer in male and female circumcision in certain conditions. I fully believe that circumcision of both sexes is capable of preventing or assisting in the prevention and curing or assisting in a cure of more diseases and diseased conditions than any other one operation known in surgery.
In my opinion there are hundreds of children, both boys and girls that die each summer with stomach and bowel troubles that could be easily saved by the treatment that was given in addition to circumcision. It is surprising why the value of circumcision and especially female circumcision is so little known. As some evidence that this subject is neglected I will quote one paragraph from Dr. B. E. Dawson's article on "Circumcision of Females," Medical Council, Feb., 1915:
"Not one physician in a hundred can distinguish a normal clitoris. They have neglected this organ. One physician of many years experience acknowledged that he had never seen a clitoris to recognize it. Only this week I saw a surgeon of ability, who had attended the great clinics in Europe, operate on a woman who is tabetic, where he removed piles from the rectum, and a portion of the coccyx. I could see at a glance that she needed circumcision, but he ignored this organ, also the other sexual organs. His patient will get but little permanent benefit from his work, which was badly needed, but not sufficient."
It is often hard for some people to understand the value of circumcision when a physician suggests the operation. Of course when a new form of treatment to the patient or parents of a child is suggested, as for instance circumcision for convulsions, nervousness, hysteria, bed-wetting, diarrhea, indigestion, retarded development in children stammering, idiocy, etc., they wish to know how such treatment aids the condition, and many of the intelligent class must be informed of such before they submit to the operation. "As the sun rules the day and the moon governs the night," so should the physician "with equal regularity endeavor to rule and govern the "knowledge of his patients who are in need of circumcision." False sympathy or ignorance often keep parents from having a child circumcised."
[Burnett JA. Circumcision. Medical Summary: A Monthly Journal of Practical Medicine. v.37. 1915.]
1915 Benjamin E. Dawson said the clitoral hood is the source of "many neuroses and even psychoses" making female circumcision (prepucectomy) necessary.
"The same category of diseases having their origin in nerve-waste, caused by a pathological foreskin in the male, may be duplicated in the female, from practically the same cause, and in addition, other diseases peculiar to females. … Girls have been sadly neglected; therefore, I make a plea in their behalf."
[Circumcision in the Female: Its Necessity and How to Perform It. Am J Clin Med.]
1915 William J. Robinson explained how intact foreskin caused masturbation from learning hygienic practices:
"The prepuce is one of the great factors in causing masturbation in boys. Here is the dilemma we are in: If we do not teach the growing boy to pull the prepuce back and cleanse the glans there is the danger of smegma collecting and of adhesions and ulcerations forming, which in their turn will cause irritation likely to lead to masturbation. If we do teach the boy to pull the prepuce back and cleanse his glans, that handling alone is sufficient gradually and almost without the boy's knowledge to initiate him into the habit of masturbation … Therefore, off with the prepuce!"
[Circumcision and Masturbation. Medical World, vol. 33 (1915): p. 390.]
1918 Belle Eskridge concluded circumcision (prepucectomy) will relieve one of the greatest causes of masturbation in girls. She wrote of Middle Eastern female genital cutting practices positively as well as her own experiences with female genital cutting:
"In Egypt all girls of true Egyptian origin are circumcised. It is an Egyptian custom, practised as a ritual event even on Mohammedan girls of Fellah (that is, of true Egyptian) origin. Circumcision of the male child has been practised as a religious custom or ritual by Jews since the early ages. Putting it under the cloak of religion is the only way they felt sure of its perpetuation.
Of the large number of girls whom I have circumcised, and the boys circumcised by the other members of staff, there is as much improvement in the girls as in the boys. The superintendent says that the girls show even a greater improvement than the boys. Some of them are quite changed in character. The improvement in health and general appearance of the girl is surprising. I have examined the genitalia of over 250 girls in this home. Less than a dozen were normal…. The glans should be free from adhesions. When the prepuce is stretched latterly [sic]. These girls are wholesome, normal girls of better mental balance, judging from observation alone….
The operation of circumcision of the girl is a very simple surgical procedure. The prepuce can invariably be separated from the glans by the thumb and index finger covered with gauze, placed directly opposite on each side of the clitoris, with gently steady pressure outward from the glans. If a little irregular point still remains adherent, it can easily be stripped back with gauze. No cutting instrument will be required up to this point. When the glans is entirely free, seize the prepuce at the median line with a small forceps and lift it up free of the glans clitoris; then with a sharp pair of scissors, remove a V-shaped piece, extending upward large enough to uncover the glans well back. The skin and mucous membrane are then united as in the operation on the male. I cover the united edges of the hood, but not the glans, with compound tincture of benzoin about the consistency of cream. The nurse is instructed to keep it clean and pushed back twice a day until healed.
I hope you will not infer from this paper that I believe or recommend circumcision of the female as a cure-all, but I do insist that it will give as good results to the girl as to the boy, and that the female genital organs should receive as careful attention at birth as those of the male child."
[Why not circumcise the girl as well as the boy? Texas State J M. 1918.]
1920: ~52% of the newborn American male population is circumcised and 29% of adult men
In the 1920's, with the influx of immigrants from Southern & Eastern Europe, white upper class Americans have a crisis of cultural identity. They sought circumcision as a means of distinguishing themselves from poor immigrants (who could not afford hospital births) that they perceived to be racially inferior, dirty, vulgar, and with disease carrying uncut penises. Circumcision elevated to a status symbol. [D.L. Gollaher, Journal of Social History, Volume 28, Number 1: Pages 5 – 36.]
Here we can see the strong correlation between hospital birth rates and circumcision rates.
1921 Jacob S. Rinehart, a Missouri physician, wrote of circumcision for both sexes enthusiastically:
"Orificial surgery is not a theory, fad or hobby. It is eminently practical, based upon anatomical and physiological facts, easily confirmed in all standard text-books. The effects, both moral and physical, of the circumcision of the boy has been recognized and given more or less attention since the time of Moses. But few today—including physicians—recognize the fact that girls are equally benefited by circumcision; and, furthermore, that there are many other irritations of the lower orifices of the body that have equally far-reaching effects upon the physical and moral life of the individual.
…The sympathetic nervous system furnishes the motive power that runs all physical machinery, including the capillary circulation—and we marvel that all interested in the relief of human ills do not search for irritations of the sympathetic nerve. Just as pressing upon an electrical button exhausts the electric current, so does irritation or impingement of the sympathetic nerve terminal exhaust sympathetic nerve force, or the very life of the force.
Ninety-nine per cent. of the babies, both boys and girls, require circumcision at birth.
Please understand that this is not a theory, but is an established fact. The probation officers in New York are now sending incorrigible children, moral degenerates and sexual perverts to Dr. Elizabeth Muncie for orificial corrections."
He also wrote of orificial results including a woman with "paranoia (insanity with delusions)" who he "found suffering from nerve waste." He "circumcised her, amputated both labia, dilated the cervix and rectum… Her recovery has been complete, both mental and physical. She has been saved to her family."
"Some of the moral effects (as well as the physical) of the circumcision of the boy has long been recognized. But few, today, including physicians, recognize the fact that girls are equally benefited by circumcision, and, furthermore, that any of the forms of irritation (already mentioned) of the sexual system or even of the rectum may be the source of sexual self-consciousness. This frequently leads to masturbation in both girls and boys. Such children need pity; they are usually nervous and irritable, and possibly willful. These conditions are responsible for the immorality of our schools, for the prostitution in society, for gonorrhea and syphilis, and for many of the unworthy marriages and divorces. Hence, while we are solving the problem of chronic diseases we are also solving the problems of society. It has been agreed, by all physicians with years of experience in this line of work, that every prostitute has some form of sexual irritation producing sexual self-consciousness. The proof of this phase of the orificial philosophy, as with the chronic physical and mental diseases, lies in its manifold cases of practical application, the many who have thus been restored from a life of shame and disgrace to one of purity and hope."
[The Relation of Orificial Surgery to Social Hygiene. The Eclectic Medical Journal.. 1921.] and [Why Chronic Diseases? Med Standard. 1922.]
1926 Abraham Wolbarst claimed circumcision prevented penile (skin) cancer. [Is circumcision a prophylactic against penis cancer? Cancer.]
1928 An editor states in the Journal of the American Medical Association that risks of circumcision do not contradict the surgery.
"Phimosis may be a predisposing cause of masturbation in some cases... Hemorrhage [severe bleeding] following circumcision at birth cannot be considered seriously as a contraindication. Meatal ulcer due to ammoniacal diapers in the circumcised is not a contraindication... Routine circumcision at birth is warranted."
[Routine Circumcision at Birth? JAMA vol. 91 (1928): p.201.]
1930: ~58% of the newborn American male population is circumcised and 36% of adult men
1930 Norton Henry Bare claimed to have cured a boy of epilepsy by destroying his foreskin. [Surgical treatment of epilepsy with report of case. The China Medical Journal.]
1932 Abraham Wolbarst repeated his claim that amputating foreskin prevents penile (skin) cancer based on only a few case reports of cancer in India and the US. [Circumcision and penile cancer. Lancet. 150-3.]
1934 Aaron Goldstein and Hiram S. Yellen invented and marketed the popular Gomco™ clamp inspired by rim clamp tire changing machines. It made it easier than ever for doctors to cut off more skin than in circumcisions without clamps with much lower risk of death than would attend such extreme cutting using sutures or a compression bandage without tissue-fusing pressure from the clamp. The design of the clamp encourages doctors to perform more excisive surgeries. The clamp was promoted with events like promotional circumcisions of children in orphanages. [Bloodless circumcision of the newborn. AJOG.]
1935 R. W. Cockshut recommended that all boys' foreskin be amputated in order to desensitize the penis to promote chastity.
"I suggest that all male children should be circumcised. This is 'against nature', but that is exactly the reason why it should be done. Nature intends that the adolescent male shall copulate as often and as promiscuously as possible, and to that end covers the sensitive glans so that it shall be ever ready to receive stimuli. Civilization, on the contrary, requires chastity, and the glans of the circumcised rapidly assumes a leathery texture less sensitive than skin. Thus the adolescent has his attention drawn to his penis much less often. I am convinced that masturbation is much less common in the circumcised. With these considerations in view it does not seem apt to argue that 'God knows best how to make little boys.'"
[Circumcision. British Medical Journal. Vol.2 (1935): p.764.]
Posted by DarthEquus | 4 September 2020 |
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