how Eunuchs were made

[wizard (imported)]

>>

- The second [quote="happou

sai (imported)" time=1052910720]
method left the balls in, but cut the cords.

>Is there a rea

son why modern surgical castrations aren't done this way?

I suppose it's because nowadays asepsis is no problem, so it doesn't cause a significant risk to make the slits large enough to take'em out and keep 'em from literally rotting inside the body. Back then, it was safer to make the wound as small as possible.

And perhaps also because nowadays it isn't that usual to castrate someone without t
[/quote]
elling him the truth about what's happening! And that was more the rule than the exception with those boys. So it

3369060]
was good (mostly for the perpetrators) if the full extent of the deed wasn't immediately obvious to the victim.

> I was wondering if you or anybody el

se have any information on how the Chinese eunuchs, or more accurately, as Il pointed out, nullos, were nullified?

I haven't looked into that part of history, since my main
[/quote]
interest is in music, and thus in musical castrati. But somehow I have the dim and distant feeling that some kind of knife must have been involved...

Bye,

Il Musico

Dear Musico:

Loved your commets, show a lot of knowledge.

About the film Farinellini it was in hot MILK not water that the boy get castrated, beautiful scene: the little pink stream of blod when his balls are cut in the milk bath.

Persians have a special way to castrate that was pressing the balls together very tight atrophying ther development. That way the boy and young man kept the desires but not the abilty to perform. At least thats what I have read, and what is implied in the novel The Persian Boy of MAry Renault, about a Persian boy that was the lover of Alexander the Great.

I would like to know if there is some reality or scientific truth about it.

I'm about to perform my first castration. A slave of mine is totally impotent and I asume that so much ball torture have rendered his balls almost dead already. He is totally willing. Do you suggest any particular procedure?

I'm planning to use an elastrator, but not really removing the balls. Will the dead testes be absorved in the body or they will shrink and be hanging there totally useless (they already are useless, since he has no erections, no masculinity whatsoever and can wait until he becomes a real eunuch).

Answer me asap, please.

[karel (imported)]

Has somebody a copy (in English) Charles D'Ancillion´s book?

[karel (imported)]

Thanks, Il Musico, for the fascinating account of how castrati were ca

strated. I was wondering if you or anybody else have any information on ho

w the Chinese eunuchs, or more accurately, as I

l pointed out, nullos, were nullified?

I have only short information that there were two methods used:

1. surgical -by short curved knife -after hot bath of the genital in some liquid (the whole penis and scrotum with testicles were bounded)

2." nonsurgical" the whole genitals were bounded with silk thread so that they died in several days.

both method were usually used in prepubertal age -the second only in prepubertal boys.

Both methods were drastic and dangerous,because during first days the urination was impossible.

[JesusA (imported)]

Kathryn Ringrose, in her wonderful new book The Perfect Servant, explores what little we know about the surgery from the early Byzantine Empire. The first two pages of the book are quoted on the Nonfiction Board at http://www.eunuch.org/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=21496. While eunuchs were very common, both domestically produced and imported from outside the empire, their biographies usually begin much later in their lives – their age of castration and the type are usually impossible to determine.

For those few domestic eunuchs for which information is available, it is clear that prepubertal castration removing the testicles only was the norm. The cases found are the sons of merchants or small landowners who were castrated either for service in the court or for service in the church. Most appear to have been castrated at around age seven, though there are clear examples of both earlier and later castration.

On technique, Ringrose quotes the great seventh-century surgeon Paulus Aegina, whose techniques only slightly modified those of Galen from the second-century. Two methods for castration of children are described. The best is simple excision of the two testicles through incisions in the scrotum. If done on a child before he reaches puberty, the surgery is deemed simple and very safe. The other method, which is described, but not recommended, is to crush the testicles of an infant so that they are destroyed.

Ringrose mentions one court eunuch who was castrated by his mother, through the crushing method, before his naming ceremony. Others are described as having had their testicles crushed by mothers or nursemaids when they were one or two months old.

Whether the surgical method was more often done by trained surgeons or by parents cannot be determined from the records that survive.

Ringrose constrasts Byzantine eunuchs with those produced in western Europe (at least partly for sale into the Moslem world). Liutprand, Bishop of Cremona, on his state visit to Byzanitum in 968 brought a gift of eunchs for presentation to the emperor Nikephoros Phokas. All had their penises removed, in the western style. This operation was considered very dangerous and unnecessary by the Byzantines, although Verdun, in modern France, seems to have been a major center for such surgery.

There are a number of pieces on the Nonfiction Board that speak to this issue, with information about techniques of castration in India, Russia, China, Africa, etc.

[stevesd (imported)]

The movie actually shows the boy being castrated? Did they cut off his sack or just take out the balls?? What was Warm milk used for? Hum...I think in the 21st world of time, there should be places where guys can get castrated if they wish.

stevesd

[Paolo]

Steve,

You don't actually see anything happening in the movie. It's all heavily implied. It's not overly factual either...

[John (imported)]

Hello!

May I put a stupid question: Which movie do you talk about?

Asks

John

[tjstill (imported)]

Same here. In the CD insert booklet to "The Last Castrato" - Alessandro Moreschi, pictured in my avitar- ("Last" being sort of a mis-nomer because there are other castrati on the disc, albeit supposedly older than Moreschi), they talk about in the hayday of castrati, shouts being called out, "E viva il cotello!" meaning "Long live the knife!"

The movie "Farinelli" (discussed in another thread here; I don't agree with much of the movie's portrayal, but that's another topic), started out showing a boy being put in a wooden tub of hot water and drugged some how. "Cry to Heaven" by Anne Rice, gives a detailed description of honey and wine being given to a boy of 6, and to strange sensations of soft hands between his legs, before his waking up with bandages in a fancy conservatory for eunuch children. The history also speaks of these castrations being done in pharmacies, basically, and lots of times done at the request of poor mothers hoping that their child would grow up to be famous, rich singers. Definately against the odds. At the same time, the castrations were blamed on "accidents" and never were officially legal.

Furhter back in the thread there is this mpvie mentioned if you want to find it.

[Paolo]

This one:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0109771/

"Farinelli", Sony, 1994

Like I said, not very factual and very embellished.