explorers. For these peoples, circumcision likely started as a blood sacrifice and a test of bravery, and became an initiation rite with attendant instruction in manhood in more recent centuries. The removal of the foreskin was done with seashells, and it is theorized that the bleeding was stopped with eucalyptus smoke.

The Americas

Some groups in the Americas are known to have a history of circumcision. Christopher Columbus found circumcision in practice by the native Americans. It was also practiced by the Incas, Aztecs and Mayans. Theories have been proposed as to how circumcision came to these cultures in the Americas, although none has been considered conclusive.

Modern times: Circumcision as a medical intervention

Circumcision has only been thought of as a common medical procedure since late Victorian times. In 1870, influentialof Circumcision. Circumcision was thought to prevent or cure an enormous and wide-ranging array of medical problems and social ills, including masturbation (considered by the Victorians to be an enormous problem), syphilis, epilepsy, hernia, headache, clubfoot, alcoholism, and gout. By the turn of the century, in both American and Great Britain, infant circumcision was nearly universally recommended.

After the end of World War II, Britain moved to a nationalized health care system, and so looked to ensure that each medical procedure covered by the new system could be demonstrated to be cost-effective. Douglas Gairdner‘s 1949 article “The Fate of the Foreskin” argued persuasively that the evidence available at that time showed that the risks outweighed the known benefits, and subsequently circumcision rates dropped in Britain and Europe. In the