History of circumcision

Circumcision and/or subincision, often as part of an intricate coming of age ritual, was a common practice among the Aboriginal peoples of Australia and most Pacific islanders at first contact with Western travellers.

"[17][19] Freud believed that circumcision allows senior men to constrain the incestuous desires of their juniors, and mediates the tension inherent in the father-son relationship and generational succession.

[31]: 3  On the other hand, medical historian Frederick Hodges argues there is evidence against the purported prevalence of circumcision in Egypt, proposing it was limited to priests, functionaries and some workers.

[citation needed] Herodotus, writing in the 5th century BCE, wrote that the Egyptians did not find the outcome to be aesthetically pleasing but that they "practise circumcision for the sake of cleanliness, considering it better to be cleanly than comely.

He mentions that the alteration of the body and ritual were supposed to give access to ancient mysteries reserved solely for the initiated (See also Clement of Alexandria, Stromateis 1.15).

[27] A papyrus, which was part of the Serapeum's Ptolemaios archive at Memphis and has been dated to 163 BCE, indicated that an ancient Egyptian girl, Tathemis, was scheduled to undergo it.

Herodotus reported that circumcision is only practiced by the Egyptians, Colchians, Ethiopians, Phoenicians, the 'Syrians of Canaan', and "the Syrians who dwell about the rivers Thermodon and Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macronians and Macrones".

[39] Herodotus also reports, however, that "the Phoenicians, when they come to have commerce with the Greeks, cease to follow the Egyptians in this custom, and allow their children to remain uncircumcised.

[50] Negative evaluations of the aesthetic outcome of the procedure may have led to a decline in the incidence of circumcision among many peoples that had previously practiced it throughout Hellenistic times.

In one such technique, a copper weight (called the Judeum pondum) was hung from the remnants of the circumcised foreskin until, in time, they became sufficiently stretched to cover the glans.

As it actually increases the likelihood of infections such as tuberculosis and venereal diseases, modern day mohels use a glass tube placed over the infant's penis for suction of the blood.

Maimonides reasoned that the bleeding and loss of protective covering rendered the penis weakened and in so doing had the effect of reducing a man's lustful thoughts and making sex less pleasurable.

A rare exception occurred in Visigothic Spain, where during the armed campaign king Wamba ordered circumcision of everyone who committed atrocities against the civilian population.

[67] According to UNAIDS, the papal bull of Union with The Copts issued during that council stated that circumcision was merely unnecessary for Christians;[68] El-Hout and Khauli, however, regard it as condemnation of the procedure.

[70] In the 18th century, Edward Gibbon referred to circumcision as a "singular mutilation" practised only by Jews and Turks and as "a painful and often dangerous rite" ... (R. Darby)[71] In 1753 in London there was a proposal for Jewish emancipation.

On circumcision in the Encyclopædia Britannica, the ninth edition published in 1876, discusses the practice as a religious rite among Jews, Muslims, the ancient Egyptians and tribal peoples in various parts of the world.

In the 1910 entry of the Encyclopædia Britannica it stated: "This surgical operation, which is commonly prescribed for purely medical reasons, is also an initiation or religious ceremony among Jews and Muslims".

This is evidenced in the same entry, stating that "in recent years the medical profession has been responsible for its considerable extension among other than Jewish children ... for reasons of health" (11th edition, Vol.

[full citation needed] In 1929, the entry is much reduced in size and consists merely of a brief description of the operation, which is "done as a preventive measure in the infant" and "performed chiefly for purposes of cleanliness".

Readers are then referred to the entries for 'Mutilation' and 'Deformation' for a discussion of circumcision in its religious context, showing a continued negative evaluation for the practice, reflecting limited use and rarity among the general populace.

[71] Widespread adoption of the practice as surgical procedure occurred under the growing belief in the Anglophone medical community of its efficacy in reducing the risk of contracting sexually-transmitted diseases, such as syphilis.

[citation needed] Circumcision rose in incidence before falling in most Western and Anglophonic societies during the 20th century, with the exception of the United States.

"[82] Nathaniel Heckford, a paediatrician at the East London Hospital for Children, wrote Circumcision as a Remedial Measure in Certain Cases of Epilepsy, Chorea, etc.

In 1866, Baker Brown described the use of clitoridectomy, the removal of the clitoris, as a cure for several conditions, including epilepsy, catalepsy and mania, which he attributed to masturbation.

[85] Baker Brown's ideas were more accepted in the United States, where, from the 1860s, the operation was being used to cure hysteria, nymphomania, and in young girls what was called "rebellion" or "unfeminine aggression".

By the 1890s, hernia, bladder infections, kidney stones, insomnia, chronic indigestion, rheumatism, epilepsy, asthma, bedwetting, Bright's disease, erectile dysfunction, syphilis, insanity, and skin cancer had all been linked to the foreskin, and many[who?]

The success of the germ theory of disease had not only enabled physicians to combat many of the postoperative complications of surgery, but had made the wider public deeply suspicious of dirt and bodily secretions.

[86] Secondly, moral sentiment of the day regarded masturbation as not only sinful, but also physically and mentally unhealthy, stimulating the foreskin to produce the host of maladies of which it was suspected.

[citation needed] Born in the United Kingdom during the late 19th century, John Maynard Keynes and his brother Geoffrey, were both circumcised in boyhood due to parents' concern about their masturbatory habits.

The British paediatrician Douglas Gairdner published a famous study in 1949, The fate of the foreskin,[96][97] described as "a model of perceptive and pungent writing.