sentences:  In 1870, Sayre began using circumcision as a purported cure for several cases of young boys diagnosed with paralysis or significant motor problems.He thought the procedure ameliorated such problems based on a "reflex neurosis" theory of disease, which held that excessive stimulation of the genitals was a disturbance to the equilibrium of the nervous system and a cause of systemic problems.The use of circumcision to promote good health also fit in with the germ theory of disease during that time, which saw the foreskin as being filled with infection-causing smegma (a mixture of shed skin cells and oils).