The current medical system and dr and nurse training hasn t been overhauled and changed in over 100 years. Its failing to meet needs or provide high quality care. The whole thing needs modernizing and different training and selection methods to meet 21st century needs. This poor toddler is proof of that.

rogerwpbfl (imported) wrote: Mon Dec 24, 2018 7:03 am There appear to be a lot of women who think boys should be castrated at an early age, they're probably cheering this life altering blunder.

He may still have a future as prime minister of the UK, or maybe he can move to Canada and be prime minister someday.

I think a lot of females simply resent and envy males being males in all forms.

No possibility of "testicular transplant"?

Moi

PS: The V.A. is doing them today!

As part of a Joy Stick transplant

for young men whose crotch is like totally

via IED

Is it necessary to give comments like these? It's a sad story and the topic should be treated corresponding to that.

T van Keel (imported) wrote: Thu Dec 27, 2018 9:27 am Is it necessary to give comments like these? It's a sad story and the topic should be treated corresponding to that.

People are on here for different reasons. Some for serious research. Others for entertainment. To each his own.

At user's request, some comments were removed.

Paolo wrote: Thu Dec 27, 2018 12:04 pm At user's request, some comments were removed.

Thank you for your help, sorry for being an idiot.

Thanks also for all you and all the moderators do for the EA community.

rogerwpbfl (imported) wrote: Mon Dec 24, 2018 7:03 am There appear to be a lot of women who think boys should be castrated at an early age, they're probably cheering this life altering blunder.

He may still have a future as prime minister of the UK, or maybe he can move to Canada and be prime minister someday.

Seriously, though?

Yes, there are; no doubt. One wonders how they'd feel if it happened to someone they knew? I've met some women with this attitude, and prayed that they never had kids, period, much less boys.

And yes, historically, there were several time periods in which a castrated boy could grow up to have a brilliant career in politics, military, and many other positions that were historically reserved for eunuchs.

Today, those who know about what happened to this tyke would likely feel pity for him in a culture that doesn't understand (much less even KNOW) about eunuchs, history, and the lot.

Modern eunuchs in India and the area still have a rough time of it.

The Chinese rebellion in the early 20th century put a stop to the eunuch culture there. Before that, the Pope decreed that the Castrati Singers would officially out of vogue and illegal. Throughout history, different cultures have both celebrated and opposed eunuchs at the same time.

There were certainly those who did not favor the castration of boys in Italy and surrounding areas for training as singers. And, eventually, the practice was done away with.

Obviously, the new regime in China didn't think much of eunuchs, as they tossed them all out with the Emperor.

Even in the Byzantine days, Theophylactus of Ochrid wrote his work "Treatise in Defense of Eunuchs", to defend his brother and his nephew (I think it was a nephew too) against those opposed to eunuchs in their culture.

While not exactly at the same time, the story of Metrios and his only son is documented for the other side of the argument. Metrios was a childless man who is finally blessed by God with a son late in life. He promptly has the boy castrated so that the tyke can go off to be educated for a courtly career, no doubt high-paying, to take care of his parents in old age. Illegitimate sons of members of the royal family were castrated as well, which was one point of culture that shocked the invading Ottomans that eventually took the Empire. While I don't have the note handy, one Ottoman leader was recorded as being "shocked" that they castrated their own sons. (Keep in mind, the idea of eunuchs was OK with some of them, so long as it was foreigners who were eunuchs.)

Today, though, it's just a tragedy for the boy.

OK, nerd-rant over.

Paolo wrote: Thu Dec 27, 2018 12:23 pm Seriously, though?

Yes, there are; no doubt. One wonders how they'd feel if it happened to someone they knew? I've met some women with this attitude, and prayed that they never had kids, period, much less boys.

And yes, historically, there were several time periods in which a castrated boy could grow up to have a brilliant career in politics, military, and many other positions that were historically reserved for eunuchs.

Today, those who know about what happened to this tyke would likely feel pity for him in a culture that doesn't understand (much less even KNOW) about eunuchs, history, and the lot.

Modern eunuchs in India and the area still have a rough time of it.

The Chinese rebellion in the early 20th century put a stop to the eunuch culture there. Before that, the Pope decreed that the Castrati Singers would officially out of vogue and illegal. Throughout history, different cultures have both celebrated and opposed eunuchs at the same time.

There were certainly those who did not favor the castration of boys in Italy and surrounding areas for training as singers. And, eventually, the practice was done away with.

Obviously, the new regime in China didn't think much of eunuchs, as they tossed them all out with the Emperor.

Even in the Byzantine days, Theophylactus of Ochrid wrote his work "Treatise in Defense of Eunuchs", to defend his brother and his nephew (I think it was a nephew too) against those opposed to eunuchs in their culture.

While not exactly at the same time, the story of Metrios and his only son is documented for the other side of the argument. Metrios was a childless man who is finally blessed by God with a son late in life. He promptly has the boy castrated so that the tyke can go off to be educated for a courtly career, no doubt high-paying, to take care of his parents in old age. Illegitimate sons of members of the royal family were castrated as well, which was one point of culture that shocked the invading Ottomans that eventually took the Empire. While I don't have the note handy, one Ottoman leader was recorded as being "shocked" that they castrated their own sons. (Keep in mind, the idea of eunuchs was OK with some of them, so long as it was foreigners who were eunuchs.)

Today, though, it's just a tragedy for the boy.

OK, nerd-rant over.

Thank you for this history lesson. I had no idea eunuchs enjoyed such a rich part of history. Seems like in all of your examples the balls were sacrificed but it was common to leave the penis alone. I wonder if penis removal was considered a form of humiliating execution whereas castration was simply a treatment for a variety of concerns.

<<SNIP>>

OK, nerd-rant over.

I’ll continue Paolo’s “Nerd Rant.”

SAINT METRIOS is mentioned in one of the versions of the Synaxarion of Constantinople (a collection of abbreviated saints' lives). He’s named as a virtuous, but childless, man in Paphlagonia (a mountainous area just to the north of Galatia in modern Turkey). It is written that God rewarded him for an exemplary act of virtue by blessing him with a son. Metrios promptly castrates his young son and sends him to Constantinople where he rises high in the imperial service and becomes parakoimomenos ('Keeper of the Imperial Bedchamber') and patrikios ('Keeper of the Imperial Seal'). Thus does Metrios make his fortune, and so his virtue is rewarded. (Whether his son feels that being castrated so that he can support his father in his old age is a reward or not is unstated!)

As Kathrine Ringrose notes, there are a great many references to castration in childhood in the Byzantine Empire. Paphlagonia figures in many of these. As a child Polyeuktos the future patriarch of the church was castrated by his parents. John the Orphanotrophos, a Paphlagonian, was castrated along with two of his brothers to advance the fortunes of his family. The same is true of Nikephoros, bishop of Miletos, who was also castrated by his parents to ensure his professional advancement. The patrikios Niketas, a Paphlagonian eunuch, was castrated by his parents, reared and educated in Paphlagonia before being sent to Constantinople at age 17. The brother of Theophylaktos of Ohrid, whom Paolo mentions, was probably castrated as a child by his parents, as would have been Theophylaktos’ nephew who is the central figure of his treatise.

I find the number of Byzantine eunuchs specifically mentioned as having come from Paphlagonia to be interesting. Earlier in Christian history the Epistle of Paul to the Galatians is thought by some New Testament scholars to have been NOT about discouraging circumcision by newly converted Christians, but about discouraging self-castration. Galatia, immediately to the south of Paphlagonia, was a major center of worship of The Mother of the Gods, whose priests were all self-castrated. His letter did not entirely have the desired effect.

_______

Dellehaye, Hippolyte, ed. (1902). Synaxarium ecclesiae Constantiopolitanae. (Bruxelles: Société des Bollandistes, 1902), pp. 721-723.

Ringrose, Kathryn M. (2003). The Perfect Servant: Eunuchs and the Social Construction of gender in Byzantium. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press), p. 62.