Ritual circumcision has been practiced on Jewish males for more than 3,700 years, ever since, as we read in the Torah, Abraham was commanded by G-d, "You shall cause every male among you to be circumcised." (Genesis 17:10)

As an operation, circumcision has an extremely small complication rate. A study in the New England Journal of Medicine (1990) reported a complication rate of 0.19% when circumcision is performed by a physician. When performed by a trained mohel, the rate falls to 0.13% or about 1 in 1000. When a complication occurs, it is usually excessive bleeding, which is easily correctable. No other surgical procedure can boast such figures for complication-free operations!

One reason why there are so few complications involving bleeding may be that, according to recent studies, the major clotting agents, prothrombin and vitamin K, do not reach peak levels in the blood until the eighth day of life. According to Dr. Armand J. Quick, author of several works on the control of bleeding, it was recognized as early as 1894 that the newborn infant tended to bleed easily in the first few days of life. This was later confirmed when researchers gained the ability to accurately measure prothrombin in the blood.

Prothrombin levels are normal at birth, drop to very low levels in the next few days, and return to normal at the end of the first week. Another study showed that by the eighth day prothrombin levels reach 110% of normal... In the words of Dr. Quick, "It hardly seems accidental that the rite of circumcision was postponed until the eighth day by the Mosaic law."