Croctopus (imported) wrote: Mon Oct 21, 2024 12:10 pm This is super intretesting thank you! I guess it's the idea that great soldiers and generals can rise above men with testosterone feels like an extraordinary handicap but your suggestion that the lack of evidence of southern eunuchs being no squeaky wheels in the presence added sunlight and calcium is reasonable. I've learned a lot from browsing the forums so far and for this information I am grateful. I have it in my head that there is an extinct ancient plant like sylphium that they all took to explain the promiscuity among castrati, etc.
I think it was in the non-fiction section, but I've seen a reference that there are supposedly studies that show a present day and recent past correlation between HIGHER ranks in the US military and LOWER Testosterone levels - probably at least partially age related, but still interesting... At least one suggested explanation relates to emotional responses to situations... Testosterone is associated w/ "Reactive / agressive" responses which tend to be immediate and arguably not great for individual survival, though good for 'tribal' survival... Reactive responses makes the caveman jump into the defense against the predator attacking the women, or the soldier jump on the grenade / attack the machine gun nest, etc... Downsides are things like "road rage".
Low T and higher estrogen is associated w/ "strategic" responses like letting the other guy take the hit, or make a longer term battle plan.... At least some of what I've seen about those eunuch leaders is that they were 'strategists' not front-line fighters... Arguably also relevant is that eunuchs in literature seem to have had a reputation for being more sly or sneaky and do long-term paybacks - again strategic rather than reactive responses...
As a practical matter - there seems to be plenty of evidence that implies a lot of osteoporosis among those that lived long enough in the old days - note how many descriptions of the elderly of either gender, eunuch or intact, included 'hunchback'... This is usually attributed to bone loss in the upper back and neck, aka osteopenia and osteoporosis... However severe osteoporosis would not have a big effect on mental function so wouldn't necessarily prevent a general from leading. More speculative, but given the at least partial evidence that eunuchs lived longer than their intact peers (probably barring things that would do in either) then presumably eunuchs would be more likely to get age related conditions like osteoporosis...
WheelyFixed
