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Comparison of circumcision practices between US and Europe in 1800s
Executive summary
In the late 1800s, circumcision in the Anglophone world moved from a mostly religious or occasional medical procedure toward routine medical practice in Britain and especially the United States; in the US it became widespread among native‑born white, relatively well‑off families linked to hospital births and medical hygiene arguments, while in Britain the Victorian anti‑masturbation and moral reform movements helped popularize the operation among upper‑class boys [1] [2] [3]. Contemporary summaries and medical histories emphasize that by the early 20th century neonatal circumcision was routine in the United States but remained comparatively uncommon in much of continental Europe, where nonreligious circumcision stayed rare [2] [4] [5].
1. How circumcision rose in Britain: moral panic, pediatrics and the “demonised” foreskin
Victorian Britain saw a cluster of moral, medical and educational forces that pushed circumcision into fashion: school‑based anti‑masturbation campaigns, physicians’ writings that framed the foreskin as a hygiene or sexual problem, and a broader tendency to medicalize behaviors once labeled sinful [3] [1]. Robert Darby’s historical work, discussed in medical reviews, traces a late‑19th century vogue in Britain driven by anxieties about sexuality and cleanliness; critics also note Darby’s strongly anti‑circumcision stance even as historians acknowledge the documented influence of those moral‑medical narratives [3].
2. Why the United States diverged: hospitals, physicians and social separation
Histories of US practice highlight two linked mechanisms: the professionalization and relocation of births from midwives’ homes to physician‑run hospitals, and a class and ethnic dimension in which routine circumcision became a marker of native‑born, well‑off white identity and distinguished those families from southern and eastern European immigrants [2] [1]. Medical histories assert that neonatal circumcision became normalized as a public‑health measure in the United States and by the early 20th century was among the most commonly performed newborn surgeries [2].
3. Medical rationales offered in the 1800s: hygiene, masturbation and prevention
Physicians in both Britain and the US advanced preventive arguments—circumcision as a safeguard against “smegma,” gonorrheal complications, phimosis, venereal disease and even as a tool to curb masturbation—with some medical authors explicitly framing it as sanitary or prophylactic medicine [2] [6]. Contemporary scholarship stresses that many of these rationales reflected the era’s evolving scientific language about contagion and cleanliness rather than modern evidence‑based consensus [2] [7].
4. Regional differences within Europe: Britain vs. continental practice
While Britain experienced a late‑Victorian rise in nonreligious circumcision, many continental European countries did not develop routine neonatal circumcision for nonreligious reasons; in much of Europe nonreligious circumcision remained rare, with declines in the 20th century and strong contrasts to Anglophone patterns [4] [5]. Available sources do not provide detailed country‑by‑country 19th‑century rates for continental Europe in this dataset; general summaries emphasize that routine, nonreligious infant circumcision did not become the norm across most of Europe [4] [5].
5. Social meanings: identity, class and medical authority
Scholars argue that circumcision’s expansion carried social signaling: in the US it marked assimilation to a medicalized, Anglo‑Protestant middle‑class norm and distinguished native‑born whites from immigrant groups, whereas in Britain the practice intersected with elite schooling and moral reform projects [1] [2]. Histories also show the role of growing medical authority—doctors and hospitals institutionalized practices once tied to clergy or ritual [2] [8].
6. Limits, disagreements and sources’ perspectives
The secondary literature includes contested interpretations: some works (e.g., Darby) frame British circumcision’s rise as a moral‑medical crusade and are critiqued for polemical anti‑circumcision stances, while other accounts emphasize public‑health rationales and professional incentives [3]. Medical historians like Gollaher and contemporaneous reviews document the ubiquity of routine neonatal circumcision in early‑20th‑century America yet also note that much of the original justification relied on period‑specific beliefs about hygiene and morality rather than modern trials [2] [4]. Where sources in the provided set are silent about specific claims—for example, exact nationwide percentages in the 1800s for every country—those data are not found in current reporting [4] [9].
7. Bottom line for readers
In short: Britain and the United States both saw important late‑19th‑century shifts toward medicalized circumcision, but the outcome diverged—Britain’s trend was tied to Victorian moral hygiene and elite schooling while the United States institutionalized neonatal circumcision through hospitals and physician practice, creating a durable cultural and social pattern that continental Europe largely did not replicate [3] [1] [2]. Readers should weigh these historical accounts alongside debates over motive and evidence: historians document the spread; critics and defenders disagree about whether the drivers were primarily hygiene, morality, professional self‑interest, or a mixture of all three [2] [3].