Unkind cut
Sir: The situation Dr Joan Horton describes (Letters, 30 June) is probably due to the fact that new mothers are often told to leave their infant boys' private parts alone: attempts to clean the foreskin can cause damage.
In the days before it was understood that genital cleanliness is socially desirable rather than medically necessary, there was an unfortunate impulse on the part of the medical establishment to perform routine circumcision to save the child from having to use soap and water in later life.
The scars, mental and physical, caused by such a drastic solution to such a minor problem are the main reason that an Inter- national Symposium on Sexual Mutilation, to discuss medical, legal and ethical consid- erations in paediatric practice, will be held at Oxford University from 5 to 7 August this year.
R.B. Warburton
20 The Avenue, Bedford
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