From James L. Snyder. M.D.

My own personal experience as a urologist with nearly 25 years of practice has included two children who must be numbered in these tragedies and are likely to be genital cripples. In Florida, in 1976, 1 was called to see a newborn immediately after his circumcision with a Gomco clamp. This child had suffered complete removal of the skin of the penile shaft, but the surgeon had left the foreskin in place. In panic, he had discarded the skin and tried to conceal the mishap. The obviously raw surface of the penile shaft required an urgent surgical procedure to cover its surface by grafting (for a similar child see Figures 1 and 2.) In 1982, I was called to see a Virginia infant who had been circumcised using a Gomco clamp and electrocautery. The result was complete loss of the glans and shaft of the penis due to a full thickness burn. After this child's penis fell off at the level of the scrotum, he underwent a series of surgical procedures at major medical centers which have created a tube for urination through a pedicle skin graft. There is, of course, no tissue to create an erection and no nerves for genital sensation in this graft (see Figure 3). Although this child's tragedy cannot be measured in dollars alone, he will recover $1 million in the out-of-court settlement of a lawsuit. He will never fully recover his sexual functions, which had been destroyed in the circumcision tragedy.






Figure 1: Illustration of a surgical repair of a circumcision in which excessive penile skin was removed.

Figure 2: Showing the completion of the surgical repair in Figure 1. Even though this child's own skin has been replaced, he will have scarring which will likely make him a genital/sexual cripple.

Figure 3: This child suffered the complete loss of the glans and shaft of the penis due to a full thickness burn from a circumcision using a Gomco clamp and electro-cautery. A pedicle skin graft creates the appearance of a penis. In this graft there is no tissue to create an erection and no nerves for genital sensation or pleasure.


These two personal experiences in the career of one physician, together with a number of lesser complications of circumcision should be compared with the fact that in the same period of time I have only encountered four patients with newly diagnosed penile cancer, two of which were in men of truly advanced years or who died within a year of other causes. On balance, circumcision is an unjustifiable preventive for penile cancer with an unacceptable number of serious complications.