I know there's been some recent uproar about the practise in ultra-Orthodox communities in the US about the moyel essentially sucking the wound dry, and that it's resulted in a number of infant deaths from infection. Back when folks didn't know about clean instruments or preventing infection, was it common for newborn infants in Jewish and Muslim communities to die from infections contracted from the circumcision wound?
I don't know if the association would have been made between a child dying from an infection and circumcision. I mean, even in the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis was so ridiculed for arguing that hand washing could reduce the incidence of childbed fever that he ended up with a complete mental breakdown and was confined to an asylum.
With that said, male circumcision definitely had its risks from a surgical standpoint. A botched circumcision could lead to a partial amputation of the penis. We do have records of this happening and the surgeon having to pay compensation to the family.
I don't know too much about it, just came across it while reading a published PhD thesis from the University of London. It's published as The Fiqh of Medicine and is under the chapter about liability. I would assume he has more sources there.