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A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain [Hardcover]

Robert Darby
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Book Description

August 1, 2005 0226136450 978-0226136455 1
In the eighteenth century, the Western world viewed circumcision as an embarrassing disfigurement peculiar to Jews. A century later, British doctors urged parents to circumcise their sons as a routine precaution against every imaginable sexual dysfunction, from syphilis and phimosis to masturbation and bed-wetting. Thirty years later the procedure again came under hostile scrutiny, culminating in its disappearance during the 1960s.

Why Britain adopted a practice it had traditionally abhorred and then abandoned it after only two generations is the subject of A Surgical Temptation. Robert Darby reveals that circumcision has always been related to the question of how to control male sexuality. This study explores the process by which the male genitals, and the foreskin especially, were pathologized, while offering glimpses into the lives of such figures as James Boswell, John Maynard Keynes, and W. H. Auden. Examining the development of knowledge about genital anatomy, concepts of health, sexual morality, the rise of the medical profession, and the nature of disease, Darby shows how these factors transformed attitudes toward the male body and its management and played a vital role in the emergence of modern medicine.

Frequently Bought Together

A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain + Circumcision: A History Of The World's Most Controversial Surgery + Marked in Your Flesh: Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern America
Price for all three: $72.81

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"If A Surgical Temptation were merely a history of circumcision in Britain, it would succeed. But it is much more than that. For Robert Darby, medical debates about circumcision become a window through which to address bigger themes—the ways in which medical attitudes about male sexuality developed and changed slowly from the eighteenth century to the middle of the twentieth century. And that really serves to make his even bigger claim—that through its effort to control men's sexuality and discussion about men's sexuality, modern British medicine began to constitute itself as a culturally legitimate expert knowledge."—Michael Kimmel, SUNY, Stony Brook

(Michael Kimmel Michael Kimmel 20050315)

"Left to its devices, the human male foreskin goes on its merry way, but Victorian England would have none of that. The uncircumcised penis was blamed for the 'moral and physical decay' of syphilis and masturbation, while doctors characterised the emission of sperm as 'a life-threatening illness that demanded drastic treatment if there was to be any hope of a cure'. Medical historian Robert Darby, . . . brilliantly records the rise of circumcision as 'a miracle-working cure-all' for many ills, including hysteria."

(Tony Maniaty Weekend Australian 20060912)

“Darby traces a gradual process that began in the 18th century with a ‘great fear’ of the moral and medical consequences of masturbation. . . . The principal value of Darby’s research lies in the detailed description, based on original sources, of changing attitudes toward sexuality and how, in turn, these attitudes changed the way physicians and nonphysicians viewed the human body.”
(David L. Gollaher New England Journal of Medicine )

"This book should be required reading for American physicians in particular, especially those who continue to perform an operation seldom practiced in the rest of the world and who might not know why it was originally begun."
(Robert A. Nye JAMA )

"A meticulously designed study, packed with historical detail. . . . A Surgical Temptation will be recognized as a major contribution to our understanding of the way beliefs about sexuality have shaped medical practice, and vice versa."
(Leonard B. Glick Sexuality Research & Social Policy )

"Historians, ethicists, physicians, developmental biologists, and sociologists should find this book a fertile and provocative resource."
(Ruth E. Walton American Journal of Human Biology )

"In emphasizing the nonscientific reasons behind both the rise and fall of circumcision, Darby not only illuminates the historical background of this topic but reminds us of the often subjective nature of medical theories and practices. . . . Revealing the complex array of factors that lie behind the history of circumcision, Darby's work is of significance not only for students and historians of medicine, gender, and sexuality, but also for those engaged in current debates surrounding the practice itself."
(Janet Miron ISIS )

"Darby's fascinating and detailed book both chronicles this grisly story and tries to explain it. . . . As a social history of the relations between public anxieties and professional establishments, Darby's book could hardly be bettered."
(Ben Knights Men & Masculinity )

"Darby has written a marvellous read, judicious in his judgement, highly empathic in his reading and deep with insight. He shows the folly and sheer unnecessary butchery of circumcision."
(Mark W. Bufton History )

"Darby has added a fascinating chapter to the history of sexuality by detailing the attitudes toward the foreskin and the rise of circumcision in Britain. . . . In addition to its careful attention to detail and its impressive range of observations, the book is largely a pleasure to read. Clear and carefully argued, it builds a case that is as fascinating as it is penetrating. . . . Awonderful study that I would recommend without qualification to historians of sexuality and medicine."
(George Haggerty Journal of the History of Sexuality )

From the Inside Flap

In the eighteenth century, the Western world viewed circumcision as an embarrassing disfigurement peculiar to Jews. A century later, British doctors urged parents to circumcise their sons as a routine precaution against every imaginable sexual dysfunction, from syphilis and phimosis to masturbation and bed-wetting. Thirty years later the procedure again came under hostile scrutiny, culminating in its disappearance during the 1960s.

Why Britain adopted a practice it had traditionally abhorred and then abandoned it after only two generations is the subject of A Surgical Temptation. Robert Darby reveals that circumcision has always been related to the question of how to control male sexuality. This study explores the process by which the male genitals, and the foreskin especially, were pathologized, while offering glimpses into the lives of such figures as James Boswell, John Maynard Keynes, and W. H. Auden. Examining the development of knowledge about genital anatomy, concepts of health, sexual morality, the rise of the medical profession, and the nature of disease, Darby shows how these factors transformed attitudes toward the male body and its management and played a vital role in the emergence of modern medicine.

An erudite, lively, and sometimes combative investigation of a formative period in medical history, A Surgical Temptation will inform and engage any reader with an interest in the history of medicine, gender, sexuality, the practice of circumcision in the world today, and the ways in which culture fashions the human body.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 368 pages
  • Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (August 1, 2005)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0226136450
  • ISBN-13: 978-0226136455
  • Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.2 x 9.3 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,455,783 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
32 of 33 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Victorian attitudes to male sexuality - what remains? February 14, 2006
Format:Hardcover
In this book Dr Robert Darby has examined Victorian thinking on male sexuality. In doing so he has exposed the roots of the thinking which still permeates medical and social attitudes to

circumcision in English-speaking countries. It is easy enough to be aware of the general nature of this negative energy around male sexuality, but until A Surgical Temptation exposed me to its murkiest depths I did not really understand where it all came from, or how mad it really is!

At the centre of the book is Victorian medical men's hatred of the foreskin - and their frank if backhanded acknowledgement of how significantly the foreskin contributes to sexual pleasure: they realised that it is easier and more pleasurable for a boy to play with his penis if it still has all its moving parts. This is the fundamental reason for the surgical temptation and the demonisation of the foreskin in the title.

There is an indignant voice behind the detailed historical research that quietly asks us to question modern practice and attitudes. Routine circumcision rates remain high in the United States and many developing countries. Much lower rates are found in Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. My suspicion is that the reasons for this are to be found in the same misinformed Victorian prudery that the book so expertly and thoroughly exposes.

I notice that Dr Darby has outlined some of the arguments in his book in an article published by American Sexuality Magazine. The book has been referred to as, "required reading" in a review published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
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17 of 21 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The First Chapter June 30, 2006
Format:Hardcover
The first pages of the first chapter quickly dispel any notion that genital cutting of infants and children has ever had a medical purpose.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Spectacular Book Gets Highest Possible Recommendation November 29, 2012
Format:Hardcover
Medical historian Robert Darby and the University of Chicago Press have released A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin & the Rise of Circumcision in Britain. A Surgical Temptation is another of several books published in recent years by intactivists or sympathizers with intactivism. (Full disclosure: While in Australia in 2003, I spent some brief yet treasured time with the author, who more recently has joined with me in coauthoring a paper currently under consideration for publication.) Given the publisher, the book naturally boasts top production values. Darby is simply superb as a medical historian, writer, and analyst of the historical forces that gave rise to medicalized circumcision in Britain (mainly England) starting in the second half of the nineteenth century. The author has a remarkable knack for unearthing and piecing together arcane data literally wrung from the dustiest, darkest corners of the world's top medical libraries, then synthesizing cogent conclusions regarding the social and medical forces that produces the ghastly, bizarre history he recounts.

Intriguingly, Darby speculates on p. 99, "If all doctors had been as coolly inductive [as John Snow was in 1849 in identifying cholera's transmission via a water pump], and if the genitals had been regarded as neutrally as the digestive tract, circumcision as a preventive health measure might never have been heard of." The author outlines in detail the various forms of backward thinking in the field of sexual medicine that enabled circumcision to endure in Britain for far longer than should have happened. Indeed, many of these errors in reasoning and fact-gathering continue to be used even today, wittingly or otherwise, often in somewhat modified form, to excuse and justify neonatal penile amputation.

The author outlines in detail the deliberate role in circumcision's development played by famous 19th century British physician William Acton. Darby also locates and deftly contextualizes a number of fascinating contemporaneous reviews of the work and writings of the initially famous, then disgraced Isaac Baker Brown. The author recounts that "a central image in Victorian pathology was the corruption of the pure by contact with impurity, and its transformation into another impure agent that could spread further corruption."

Robert Darby possesses an encyclopedic command of relevant writings from a broad range of disciplines and integrates them seamlessly into his analysis. Many of the always fascinating details provided by the author are only indirectly related to circumcision itself. Often the author is laying a broader social context, pursuing a line of argument that is relevant to the story Darby is telling.

One of the sections of the book that some would probably consider among the most speculative is Darby's original analysis of the works and lives of the poets Alfred Housman and W.H. Auden. Both men suffered circumcisions early in life that, based on the author's penetrating reviews of their writings, may well have seriously scarred them and also may have had a strong bearing on their artistic careers. Darby is to be congratulated for taking risks with his book and delving into these fascinating issues from which many authors would have shied away.

In the end, Darby demonstrates, it was the disappearance of medical and popular concern (some would say obsession) with masturbation that made it possible for circumcision to decline in Britain thanks to Douglas Gairdner's flawed if highly influential 1949 article.

Not until he reaches his concluding chapter does Darby do much connecting of dots to the modern era. In a few pages, he skillfully paints the evolution of the practice from the nineteenth century up to the present in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, as well as bringing his tale about Britain up to present times. Each of these English-speaking countries has a somewhat unique story, yet the author shows us the commonalities as well.

A Surgical Temptation is quite simply a spectacular book. It is most highly recommended to anyone reading these words and anyone else with an interest in one or more of medical history, male sexuality, and social mythmaking. Don't miss it!
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