based on the then prominent "reflex neurosis" theory of disease, with the understanding that a tight foreskin inflamed the nerves and caused systemic problems. The use of circumcision to promote good health also fit in with the germ theory of disease, which saw validation during the same time period: the foreskin was seen as harboring infection-causing smegma. Sayre published works on the subject and promoted it energetically in speeches. Although later discredited, many contemporary physicians believed it could cure, reduce, or otherwise prevent a wide-ranging array of perceived medical problems and social ills, including that of epilepsy, hernia, headache, masturbation, clubfoot, alcoholism and gout. Its popularity spread with publications such as Peter Charles Remondino's History of Circumcision. By the late 19th century, circumcision had become a common medical procedure throughout a majority of the core Anglophonic world—Australia, Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom—as well as the Union of South Africa. In the United Kingdom and United States, it was universally recommended. Historian David Gollaher proposes that "Americans found circumcision appealing not merely on medical grounds, but also for its connotations of science, health, and cleanliness—newly important class distinctions" in a country where 17 million immigrants arrived between 1890 and 1914. Interwar Period and World War II (1918-1945) During the interwar period, medical organizations and doctors in mainland Europe experimented with the idea of introducing routine circumcision for prophylactic reasons as well, in lieu of the-then ongoing developments in the Anglophonic world. In France, the medical profession went so far as to recommended universal routine circumcision. However, prevalence in France and mainland Europe remained low. There is a lack of consensus in the academic literature on why this occurred. Yosha & Bolnick & Koyle (2012) have suggested that a factor in its Anglophonic adoption and dismissal in mainland Europe relate to attitudes towards Judaism and Jewish practices. While many of these Anglophonic polities would not considered tolerant by modern standards: the United Kingdom had Benjamin Disraeli—a Jew—as Prime Minister; Jews in the United States were a prominent and generally well-respected part of American life; while in Australia "the racial issues of the time involved primarily Aborigines and Chinese immigration, and Jews were essentially below the radar." They argue that once "a substantial proportion of the male population [was] circumcised, the idea that it [was] a Jewish practice [became] no longer relevant. In Britain this was aided by the fact