1870

Lewis Sayre (Bellevue surgeon) examines a 5-year-old boy with difficulty walking owing to “a penis so tightly wound in its foreskin as to literally cripple the child.” He performs first circumcision at Bellevue and went on to popularize circumcision owing to the dangers of the “constricted penis.” By 1900, it had become “a routine medical procedure for millions of American boys” (Oshinsky 126-127).