title: Medical history and medical practice: persistent myths about the foreskin.
abstract: Although many 19th-century misconceptions about the foreskin have been dispelled since it was shown that infantile phimosis was not an abnormality, the ideas that ritual or religious circumcision arose as a hygiene measure, and that circumcision makes no difference to sexual response, have persisted. The first idea should be dismissed as a myth and the second has been seriously questioned by modern research.
authors.affiliation: robjld@webone.com.au
authors.forename: Robert J L
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Darby
mesh_terms: D002944:Circumcision, Male / Q000266:history*; D049672:History, 19th Century; D006801:Humans; D006920:Hygiene / Q000266:history; D008297:Male; D009229:Mythology; D010413:Penis / Q000502:physiology; D012677:Sensation