This essay by John Geisheker, Executive Director of Doctors Opposing Circumcision, is his personal tribute to circumcision scholar and historian, Dr. Robert Darby.
Doctors Opposing Circumcision is saddened to hear of the recent death in March 2019 of Dr. Robert Darby, of Canberra, ACT, Australia. ‘Rob’ was a tireless and brilliant scholar, a medical historian and bioethicist who defended children’s human rights and was a formidable critic of Anglophone, non-therapeutic, genital cutting. His most famous work is the book “A Surgical Temptation: The Demonization of the Foreskin and the Rise of Circumcision in Britain.” But Rob has many other essays and scholarly publications to his credit. His website on the History of Circumcision is still up in April 2019, and we hope his voice and wisdom will be preserved. A partial list of his publications may be found here, or via a search at PubMed.gov.
“A Surgical Temptation…” is a challenging book for a beginner just starting to study the origins of ‘medicalized’ genital mutilations. But for those willing to invest the study, this book is easily the most scholarly and credible explanation of the mysterious rise of hostility to normal human anatomy in English-language medicine. For any serious scholar of the topic, it is a must-read, oft-read – if melancholy – reference volume.
I had the honor to correspond with Rob on scattered occasions, usually to seek his advice or approval only to get a gracious and gentle reprimand for some inept phrase or mistake of medical history. He valued accuracy and honesty of scholarship, and advised me: “Do not use a dubious notion to build a shaky parapet your enemy can easily surmount, claiming to have conquered your entire edifice.” I treasure our correspondence, and have never forgotten his advice.
Once in 2006 when D.O.C. hosted an international symposium in Seattle, I formally invited Rob to appear. (His book “Surgical Temptation” had just come out in print and we proudly displayed it at the symposium.) I wrote, “Please come; you’ll be treated like a rock star!” He fired back, “… and that’s precisely why I will NOT be coming.” I did not know he was painfully shy. I am deeply sorry I never got to meet Rob in person, so I could hear his voice as I read his work.
My personal favorite long essay of his, which I commend to any one with even a passing interest in circumcision, is “The sorcerer’s apprentice: Why can’t the United States stop circumcising boys?”
This witty and deeply thoughtful but very readable piece has as its central metaphor the image of the sorcerer’s lazy apprentice, who, surreptitiously using his master’s secret book, having cast a spell to avoid doing his chores, finds he cannot undo it.
And so, of course, we see the American Academy of Pediatrics, having desperately distorted science and bioethics for decades, unable to summon the moral courage to break the spell of non-therapeutic cutting of children’s genitals. Meanwhile, entire continents avoided the practice, and entire Anglophone countries abandoned the practice, to no detectable loss of health.
Alas, in North America, we seem to have no sorcerer who will suddenly appear and break the spell of his apprentice (as my native New Zealand did, summarily, in the 1960s.)
Rest in Peace, Rob. Your work will live on, we will eventually prevail, and you will have been a vital part of the effort.
John Geisheker
Director, Doctors Opposing Circumcision
Seattle, WA
April 25, 2019