Crosspost "Quotes about how circumcision prevents masturbation and other snake oil claims" from /r/Intactivism:

1860

"In cases of masturbation we must, I believe, break the habit by inducing such a condition of the parts as will cause too much local suffering to allow of the practice to be continued. For this purpose, if the prepuce is long, we may circumcise the male patient with present and probably with future advantages; the operation, too, should not be performed under chloroform, so that the pain experienced may be associated with the habit we wish to eradicate."

Athol A. W. Johnson. On An Injurious Habit Occasionally Met with in Infancy and Early Childhood, The Lancet, vol. 1 (7 April 1860): pp. 344-345.

1871

"I refer to masturbation as one of the effects of a long prepuce; not that this vice is entirely absent in those who have undergone circumcision, though I never saw an instance in a Jewish child of very tender years, except as the result of association with children whose covered glans have naturally impelled them to the habit."

M. J. Moses, The Value of Circumcision as a Hygienic and Theraputic Measure, NY Medical Journal, vol.14 (1871): pp.368-374.

1887

"Hip trouble is from falling down, an accident that children with tight foreskins are specially liable to, owing to the weakening of the muscles produced by the condition of the genitals."

Lewis L. Sayer, MD, Circumcision for the Cure of Enuresis, Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 7 1887. pp.631-633.

"There can be no doubt of [masturbation's] injurous effect, and of the proneness to practice it on the part of children with defective brains. Circumcision should always be practiced. It may be necessary to make the genitals so sore by blistering fluids that pain results from attempts to rub the parts."

Angel Money. Treatment of Disease In Children, Philidelphia: P. Blakiston, 1887. p.421.

1888

"A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed without administering anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutory effect upon the mind, especially, if it is connected with the idea of punishment, as it may well be in some cases."

John Harvey Kellog, inventor of Corn Flakes, Treatment for Self-Abuse and Its Effects, Plain Facts for Old and Young, Burlington, Iowa: P. Segner & Co. 1888, p. 295.

1891

"In consequence of circumcision the epithelial covering of the glans becomes dry, hard, less liable to excoriation and inflammation, and less pervious to venereal viruses. The sensibility of the glans is diminished, but not sufficiently to interfere with the copulative function of the organ or to constitute an objection...It is well authenticated that the foreskin...is a fruitful cause of the habit of masturbation in children... I conclude that the foreskin is detrimental to health, and that circumcision is a wise measure of hygiene."

Jefferson C. Crossland. The Hygiene of Circumcision. New York Medical Journal 1891;53:484-485

"Measures more radical than circumcision would, if public opinion permitted their adoption, be a true kindness to patients of both sexes."

Jonathan Hutchinson, On Circumcision as Preventative of Masturbation, Archives of Surgery, vol. 2 (1891): pp. 267-268.

1894

"From our experiences in such cases, we feel fully warranted in suggesting the wholesale circumcision of the Negro race as an effective remedy in preventing the predisposition to discriminate raping so inherent in that race."

Peter Remondino, On Negro Rapes and their Social Problems, The National Popular Review, vol. 4 (1894): p. 3.

1895

"In all cases in which male children are suffering nerve tension, confirmed derangement of the digestive organs, restlessness, irritability, and other disturbances of the nervous system, even to chorea, convulsions, and paralysis, or where through nerve waste the nutritive facilities of the general system are below par and structural diseases are occurring, circumcision should be considered as among the lines of treatment to be pursued."

Charles E. Fisher, Circumcision, in A Hand-Book On the Diseases of Children and Their Homeopathic Treatment, Chicago: Medical Century Co., 1895. p.875.

"In all cases of masturbation circumcision is undoubtedly the physician's closest friend and ally... To obtain the best results one must cut away enough skin and mucous membrane to rather put it on the stretch when erections come later. There must be no play in the skin after the wound has thoroughly healed, but it must fit tightly over the penis, for should there be any play the patient will be found to readily resume his practice, not begrudging the time and extra energy required to produce the orgasm. It is true, however, that the longer it takes to have an orgasm, the less frequently it will be attempted, consequently the greater the benefit gained... The younger the patient operated upon the more pronounced the benefit, though occasionally we find patients who were circumcised before puberty that require a resection of the skin, as it has grown loose and pliant after that epoch."

E.J.Spratling, Masturbation in the Adult, Medical Record, vol. 24. (1895): pp. 442-443.

1896

"Local indications for circumcision: Hygienic, phimosis, paraphimosis, redundancy (where the prepuce more than covers the glans), adhesions, papillomata, ecaema (acute and chronic), oedema, chancre, chancroid, cicatrices, inflammatory thickening, elephantitis, naevus, epithelioma, gangrene, tuberculosis, prepupital calculi, hip-joint disease, hernia. Systematic indication: Onanism [masturbation], seminal emissions, enuresis [bed wetting], dysuria, retention, general nervousness, impotence, convulsions, hystero-epilepsy."

Editor, Medical Record, Circumscisus, Medical Record, vol. 49 (1896): p.430.

1897

"The prepuce is an important factor in the production of phthisis [tuberculosis]. This can be proven by the immunity of the Jewish race from tubercular affections."

S. G. A. Brown, A Plea for Circumcision, Medical World, vol. 15 (1897): pp/124-125.

"Circumcision should be done if phimosis exists, and even where it is not, the moral effect of the operation is sometimes of very great benefit."

Emmett L. Holt. The Diseases Of Infancy And Childhood. New York: D. Appleton. 1897:696-698.

1898

"Clarence B. was addicted to the secret vise practiced among boys. I performed an orificial operation, consisting of circumcision... He needed the rightful punishment of cutting pains after his illicit pleasures."

N. Bergman, Report of a Few Cases of Circumcision, Journal of Orificial Surgery, vol. 7 (1898): pp.249-251.

1900

"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."

Editor, Medical News. Our London Letter. Medical World,(1900).vol.77:pp.707-8

"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."

E. Harding Freeland, Circumcision as a Preventative of Syphilis and Other Disorders, The Lancet, vol. 2 (29 Dec. 1900): pp.1869-1871.

1901

"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."

Ernest G. Mark, Circumcision, American Practitioner and News, vol. 31 (1901): p. 231.

"Frequent micturition [urination], loss of flesh, convulsions, phosphatic calculus, hernia, nervous exhuastion, dyspepsia, diarrhea, prolapse of rectum, balantis, acute phimosis and masturbation are all conditions induced by the constricted long prepuce, and all to be rapidly remedied by the simple operation of circumcision."

H. G. H. Naylor, A Plea for Early Circumcision, Pediatrics, vol. 12 (1901): p. 231

1902

"I have repeatedly seen such cases as convulsions, contstant crying in infants, simulated hip joint diseases, backwardness in studies, enuresis, marasmus, muscular incoordination, paralysis, masturbation, neurasthenia, and even epilepsy, cured or greatly benefited by the proper performance of circumcision."

W.G.Steele, MD. Importance of Circumcision, Medical World, vol. 20 (1902): pp.518-519.

1903

"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."

Brandsford Lewis. 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.

1912

"The little sufferer lay in his mother's lap. The dropsy... had taken the form of hydrocephalus... I then circumcised the child... The head diminished in size and in two weeks the condition of hydrocephalus had disappeared and the child was once more dismissed as cured."

E. H. Pratt, Circumcision, Orificial Surgery: Its Philosophy, Application and Technique, Edited by B. E. Dawson. Newark: Physicians Drug News Co. (1912). pp. 396-398.

1912

"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."

Lydston G. Frank, Sex Hygiene for the Male Chicago: Riverton Press, 1912.

1914

"It is generally accepted that irritation derived from a tight prepuce may be followed by nervous phenomena, among these being convulsions and outbreaks resembling epilepsy. It is therefore not at all improbable that in many infants who die in convulsions, the real cause of death is a long or tight prepuce. The foreskin is a frequent factor in the causation of masturbation... Circumcision offers a diminished tendancy to masturbation, nocturnal pollutions, convulsions and other nervous results of local irritation. It is the moral duty of every physician to encourage circumcision in the young."

A.L. Wolbarst, MD. Universal Circumcision as a Sanitary Measure, Journal of the American Medical Association, (1914) Vol.62. pp.92-97.

1915

"Circumcision not only reduces the irritability of the child's penis, but also the so-called passion of which so many married men are so extreamly proud, to the detriment of their wives and their married life. Many youthful rapes could be prevented, many separations, and divorces also, and many an unhappy marriage improved if this unnatural passion was cut down by a timely circumcision."

L.W. Wuesthoff, MD. Benefits of Circumcision, Medical World, (1915) Vol.33. p.434.

"The prepuce is one of the great factors in causing masturbation in boys. Here is the dilema we are in: If we do not teach the growing boy to pull the prepuce back and cleanse the glans there is 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 cleans 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!"

William J. Robinson, Circumcision and Masturbation, Medical World, vol.33 (1915): p.390.

1917

"Children often learn to masturbate involuntarily. The habit is sometimes formed by itching the privates. Often they are not kept clean and the filth produces intense itching. See that the private parts of both sexes are kept as clean as other parts of the body.

"Circumcison and Operation on Clitoris Circumcision is the removal of the foreskin in the male. Sometimes the hood of the clitoris of the female needs to be cut down or drawn back. Sometime the foreskin or the hood of the clitoris is so tight as to cause irritation and keep the passions excited and perhaps they are a cause for masturbation. When such is the case these operations should be performed. Parents should carefully looks after these condtions as they, instead of a depraved mind, are the causes of many immmoral practices.

"Every parent should see to it that these operations are performed, if it is necessary, and it very frequently is. how often we see the little ones rubbing their private parts. Whenever a child is seen doing this the chances are that they are either unclean or need one of the above operations. Do not let the child become an involuntary masturbator through your neglect."

The People's Home Library, A Library of Three Practical books by Published by R.C Barnum Company Copyright 1910-mine appears to be the update 1917 edition

1920

"Circumcision is an excellent thing to do; it helps to prevent hernia due to straining, and later it helps in preventing masturbation. The ordinary schoolboy is not taught to keep himself clean, and if he is taught he thinks too much of the matter."

L. Solomons, MD. For and Against Circumcision, British Medical Journal, (June 5, 1920), p.768.

1928

"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."

Editor, Routine Circumcision at Birth?, Journal of the American Medical Association, vol. 91 (1928): p.201.

1935

"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.'"

R.W. Cockshut. Circumcision, British Medical Journal, Vol.2 (1935): p.764.

1941

"[Routine Circumcision] does not necessitate handling of the penis by the child himself and therefore does not focus the male's attention on his own genitals. Masturbation is considered less likely."

Alan F. Guttmacher, Should the Baby Be Circumcised?, Parents Magazine, vol.16 (1941): pp.26, 76-78.

1953

"We do feel that there are many excellent reasons for routinely circumcising the male...Circumcision will reduce the incidence of onanism....Longevity, immunity to nearly all physical and mental illness, increased physical vigor, etc., are all attributed to this practice... In addition to the aforementioned reasons for doing the operation, we shall list several reasons to support immediate circumcision. ... Convenience: Under the present regime the obstetrician finishes his episiotomy, walks across the hall and circumcises the infant, and is finished with the whole business. Stimulation of the baby: Frequently following a general anesthetic the newborn is depressed and various stimulants are employed; circumcision unfailingly produces and excellent response in a sleepy baby."

Richard L. Miller. Donald C. Snyder. Immediate Circumcision of the Newborn Male. American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 1953;65:1-11.

1969

"When children are kept busy with wholesome play, work and planning, and when they are loved and understood in matters such as these, a little masturbation may occur but will be speedily forgotten. Be sure the children are healthily tired when they go to bed. Be sure that there is no need of circumcision, or if there is that it is corrected."

Morris Fishbein. Modern Home Medical Advisor. New York: Doubleday. (1969) p. 115.

1970

"Parents readily recognize the importance of local cleanliness and genital hygiene in their children and are usually ready to adopt measures which may avert masturbation. Circumcision is usually advised on these grounds."

Meredith F. Campbell. The Male Genital Tract and the Female Urethra. in: Campbell's Urology. vol. 2. Philadelphia: W.B. Saunders Company. 1970:1836.

Posted by DarthEquus | 13 August 2020 | Link