Remondino, Chapt. 8, part 2

[JesusA (imported)]

Remondino, Chapter VIII

History 0f Emasculation, Castration, and Eunuchism.

Bergmann, of Strasburg, quotes the ancient traditions, wherein it is stated that man was taught the art of castration by the brute creation. The hyena is cited as having so instructed man by the habit it exhibited of castrating its infant males in removing the testicles with its teeth, the habit being instigated by a jealousy, for fear of future competition in the exercise of the procreative act on the part of the young males. Another tradition attributes its origin to the castor. Bergmann here traces out the etymological relation existing between the name of the operation and that of the animal with that of a Greek verb that forms the root of 'castrum,' or camp; 'casa,' or house; 'castigare,' to arrange; from whence also is traced 'cosmos,' the world; 'kastorio,' having the same relative but a more imperative signification; 'kastor,' signifying as loving to build' 'castitiator,' Latin for architect, and 'casticheur,' old French for constructor. The tale or tradition in regard to the self-mutilation inflicted by the castor is traced to the Arabian merchants who purchased the castoreum, which was imported from the shores of the Persian Gulf and from India. It was called, also, by the Arabs, 'chuzyalu-l-bahhr,' or testicles from beyond the sea; or, in French, 'testicules d'outre mer.' These terms and the tradition that the castor on being pursued, knowing the reason of the chase, was in the habit of tearing out his testicles and throwing them at his pursuers, were invented by these merchants to heighten the price and value of the article intrinsically, as well as to make it more interesting by this peculiar individuality of adventure. The Latins, believing and adopting the tradition as a matter of fact, coined the word 'castorare,' or doing like the castor. Bergmann uses in this connection a number of terms in French to denote different forms or degrees of this mutilation which have no equivalents in English, - for instance, 'chatrure,' as applied to animals, making also a distinctive difference between the meaning of the French words 'castration' and 'chatrement.' Bergmann is a decided evolutionist as regards circumcision being evolved from prior forms of physical mutilation, as will be more fully explained in the next chapter; the shaving of the head of a conquered people by the Hindoos, or the shearing the royal locks of the ancient Frankish kings; the blinding of one eye of their slaves by the old Scythians, or crippling one foot by the division of a tendon in a captive by the Goths, he considers as on the same line with the idea that led to castration, the different forms of eunuchism, and circumcision.

From a purely materialistic and utilitarian view of the subject, he observes that what we call moral progress and civilization owe their advancement more to material interest and cold, selfish calculation than to any development of the humanitarian sentiments, and that neither morality nor justice has much to do with it. The evolution of the slave and the marks inflicted upon him by his fellow humans are the most emphatic evidences of the justness of the above proposition. The study of the subject is equally interesting when considered in connection with the evolutions of the Christian Church. In its divergence from Judaism and its beneficent laws, both social and moral, the Christian Church was but illy fit to cope with its persecutors of Pagan tendencies, or to enforce an unwritten law or code of morality or hygiene among an idolatrous, barbarous, and ignorant population such as it had to encounter. To its professors, the formation of that monachism which has been so much misunderstood and abused was but an inevitable condition. These men had not the steady compass to guide them in the path that was possessed by the Jewish people. The martyrdom of Christ and many of his apostles, and the teachings of the early church, pointed to physical denials, castigations, humiliations, and sufferings as the only way to salvation; all pleasures were sin and all denials and pain were looked upon as steps to heaven. The climate pointed to sexual indulgence as the sum of all happiness, as can readily be inferred from the Mohammedan idea of heaven; so, with the early Christians who were born in the same climates, the denials of sexual pleasures were looked upon as the most acceptable offering that man could make to the Deity. Continence, celibacy, infibulation, and even castration were the conditions looked upon by many of these men as the only means of living a life on earth that would grant them an eternal life in the next. This view of the situation peopled the deserts with a lot of men dwelling in caves and in huts, living on such a scarce diet that they barely existed. That many went insane, and in their frenzy died while roaming in these solitudes, we have ample evidence. The tortures and impositions of the Pagan rulers also drove many to this life or death.

Religious mania has caused many cases of self-mutilation, either to escape continued promptings and desires, or simply from a resulting species of insanity. Of the first, Sernin reported to the Medical Society of Paris the case of a young priest who had castrated himself with the blade of a pair of scissors, and who nearly lost his life with the subsequent haemorrhage. The writer saw an analogous case on board an American war-vessel, of which Dr. Lyon was surgeon, in the harbor of Havre, in the spring of 1871, the subject being the ships' cobbler, a religious fanatic, who was driven insane by self-imposed continence. We are not surprised, from the lack of intelligence of the times, the extreme but undefined views as to religion that then ruled men, that self-imposed castration should have been sanely considered and carried into effect by Origenes and his monks. The Cybelian priesthood had formerly set the example in their Pagan worship, and when we are told that the monks of Mount Athos accused the monks of the convent of a neighboring island with falling away from grace, because they allowed hens to be kept within the convent inclosure, we may well believe that Origines and his monks felt that they were gradually ascending in grace when they submitted to this sacrifice. As strange as it may sound, self-castration is still practiced by the Skoptsy, a religious sect in Russia. In justice to the Church, however, it must be said that she neither asked for nor did she sanction these performances, although she was not quick enough in asserting that she recognized the same law in regard to her presbytery that controlled that of the Hebraic priesthood.

Eunuchism presents many contradictory conditions; eunuchs have not always been the fat and sleek attendants on Oriental harems as tradition and custom places them or would have us believe; neither does the loss of virility, in a procreative sense, seem to have always robbed them of their virility in other senses, as we find eunuchs holding the highest offices in the State under the reigns of Alexander, the Ptolemys, Lysimachus, Mithrades, Nero, and Arcadius. The eunuch Aristonikos, under one of the Ptolemys, and another, Narses, under Justinian, led the armies of their sovereigns. These are, however, exceptional cases; as a rule, the result is as we observe in the domestic animals, - loss of spirit, vim, and ambition. The Church recognized this result, and, while the Hebraic law excluded eunuchs from participating in the priesthood as being imperfect and unclean, the Church reproached Origines and his monks and excluded eunuchs from its presbytery on the ground that such beings lack the moral and physical energy requisite in a calling that is supposed to guide or lead men; moreover, there are many reasons for doubting that the ministers of state and the generals of the reigns above mentioned were actually eunuchs in the full acceptance of the word. Among the ancients there were several methods of performing the operations that made the eunuchs; some were more effectual than others. From the removal of all the genitals, or the penis alone, or the scrotum and testicles, or removing only the testicles, down to compression or to distorting the spermatic vessels, ore, as in the case of the Scythians, who often became eunuchs from bareback riding, as Hammond describes a eunuchism manufactured by our southwestern Indians of New Mexico and Arizona, are performances that left many degrees of eunuchism; as we find some eunuchs that not only contracted marriage, but engendered children. Voltaire mentions Kislav-aga, of Constantinople, a eunuch 'a outrance,' with neither penis, scrotum, nor anything, who owned a large and select harem. Montesquieu, in his "Persian Letters," admits this class of marriages as being practiced, but doubts the resulting conjugal felicity, especially on the part of the wife. Potiphar's wife was one of these unfortunate wives; no wonder that she tore Joseph's cloak in her desire. Juvenal mentions that some eunuchs were held in high esteem by the Roman matrons; it possibly could have been some of this kind of eunuch that led armies or ruled in the palaces. Among the sultans and Oriental potentates those who had every exterior evidence of virility removed, so as to be obliged to micturate through the means of a catheter, were considered the safest guards, as well as they were the highest-priced eunuchs, for in their manufacture fully 75 per cent. Of those operated upon died as a result. It is related that the Caribs made eunuch of their prisoners of war on the same principle that caponizing is resorted to for our kitchens, - the prisoners were easier to fatten and were more tender when cooked. The Italians allowed their children to be eunuchized for chorister purposes in church service, their soprano voices after this treatment being simply perfect. It was considered that, in the year prior to the papal ordinance of Pope Clement XVI forbidding the practice or the employment of eunuchs in choirs, four thousand boys, mostly in the neighborhood of Rome, were castrated for chorister purposes.

[Paolo]

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