Remondino, Chapter VIII

History 0f Emasculation, Castration, and Eunuchism.

In China eunuchs were in use during the reign of the Emperor Yen-Wang, in 781 B.C. The Chinese make their eunuchs by a complete ablation of all genitals. In India the followers of Brahma never placed their women in charge of eunuchs. In Italy it was customary to emasculate boys that they might grow up with the faculty of taking the female parts in comedies, their voices thereby assimilating to that to of the other sex, this being on the same principle that the basso-profundos were infibulated that they might retain their bass.

Eunuchism resulting from an operation owing to disease has at times given queer and unlooked-for results, as, for instance, in the case of the old man that Sprengle mentions, in whom castration did not remove an inordinate sexual desire. Sir Astley Cooper mentions a case in his "Diseases of the Testes" that is somewhat unique. After castration Sir Astley's patient showed the following results: "For nearly the first twelve months he stated that he had emissions 'in coitu', or that he had the sensations of emission; that then he had erections and coitus at distant intervals, but without the sensation of emission. After two years he had excretions very rarely and very imperfectly, and they generally ceased immediately upon the attempt at coitus. Ten years after the operation he said he had during the past year been only once connected. Twenty-eight years after the operation he stated that for years he had seldom and excretion, and then that it was imperfect." In regard to the mortality from castration done in a professional manner and for disease, Curling, in his work on "Diseases of the Testis," observes that he saw or performed some thirty operations without a death, and that in a table of like operations performed at the Hotel Dieu, in Paris, it appeared that the mortality was one in four and a quarter.

J. Royes Bell, in the sixth volume of the "International Encyclopaedia of Surgery," has the following in regard to the practice among the Mohammedans in India: "Young boys are brought from their parents, and the entire genitals are removed with a sharp razor. The bleeding is treated by the application of herbs and hot poultices; haemorrhage kills half the victims, and at times brings the perpetrators of the vile proceeding within the clutches of the law."

The 'taille a fleur de ventre' of the Chinese is a somewhat primitive procedure. According to Dr. Morache, in his account of China in the "Dic. Ency. Des Sciences Medicales," the operation is as follows: "The patient, be he adult or child, is, previous to the operation, well fed for some time. He is then put in a hot bath. Pressure is exercised on the penis and testes, in order to dull sensibility. The two organs are compressed into one packet, the whole encircles with a silk band, regularly applied form the extremity to the base, until the parts have the appearance of a long sausage. The operator now takes a sharp knife, and with one cut removes the organ from the pubis; and assistant immediately applies to the wound a handful of styptic powder, composed of odoriferous raisins, alum, and dried puff-ball powder (boletus-powder). The assistant continues the compression till haemorrhage ceases, adding fresh supplies of the astringent powders; a bandage is added and the patient left to himself. Subsequent haemorrhage rarely occurs, but obliteration of the canal of the urethra is to be dreaded. If at the end of the third or fourth day the patient does not make water, his life is despaired of. In children the operation succeeds in two out of three cases; in adults, in one-half less. Poverty is the cause which induces adults to allow themselves to be thus mutilated. It is said to be difficult to distinguish these last from ordinary Chinese men. Adult-made eunuchs are much sought after, as they present all the attributes of virility without any of its inconvenience." [G. Carter Stent, a British physician who studied castration in Beijing in the 1890s claimed a 90% success rate for adults and higher for children. -JA]

A study of the evolutionary moves or processes passed by eunuchism in its relation to music and the drama tends to rob these otherwise civilizing and enlightened arts of the aureoles of poetry and gentility with which they have been surrounded. From Bergmann we learn that the practice originated in the Orient, where female voices were held in higher esteem in singing, and where the profane songs that accompanied the dance were chanted by women. The Hebraic regulations permitted neither women nor eunuchs to sing in their temples. With the establishment of the early Christian Church in Oriental countries, more or less of the ancient Judaic customs were retained, and in addition a too literal interpretation of the words of St. Paul was adhered to, which said that women should not be heard in the Church. The Oriental Church from these reasons long remained in a quandary; according to the ceremonials, it was deemed requisite to imitate as near as possible the voices of the angelic seraphims, and this could not be done by the rasping bass voices of the well-fed monks; women were out of the question in the then social stage of church evolution; so that at last a compromise was effected by admitting the eunuch, who could chant in a most seraphic soprano, as he prototype, the mendicant priests of Cybele, had done before him.

Constantinople became the centre of learning for Greek music, and the fine soprano solos which now form the attraction of many of our modern churches were sung by the eunuchs. Eunuchs were not only the chief singers, but they cultivated the art into a science, and Constantinople furnished through this class the music-teachers for the world, as we learn that in 1137 the eunuch Manuel and two other singers of his order established a school of music and singing in Smolensk, Russia. There is no doubt but that in a moral sense, considering that women are generally the pupils, this was a most meet and an appropriate arrangement; for, as St. Alphonsus M. Liquori observed, man was fool to allow his daughters or female wards to be taught letters by a man, even if that man were a saint, and, as real saints were not to be found outside of heaven, it can well be imagined who much more dangerous it might be to have them taught music and singing by a man not a eunuch, -elements which have a recognized special aphrodisiac virtue, as was well known to the ancient Greeks, who only allowed their wives to listen to a certain form of music when they (the husbands) were absent from home.

There is not much room for doubt but that both morality and medicine have too much neglected the study and contemplation of the natural history of man, and relied altogether too much on the efficacy of church regulations and castor-oil and rhubarb. There are other things to be done besides simply framing moral codes and pouring down mandrake into the stomach; the old conjoined service of priest and doctor should never have been discontinued, as, by dividing duties that are inseparable, much harm has resulted. Herein dwelt the great benefit of the early practice of medicine among the Greeks, and to the physical understanding and supervision of human nature by the Hebraic law may be said that the creed owes its greatness and stability, and the Hebrew race its sturdy stamina. The wisdom of the Mosaic laws is something that always challenges the admiration, the secret being that it did not separate the moral from the physical nature of man. Bain, Maudsley, Spencer, Haeckle, Buckle, Draper, and all our leading sociologists base all their arguments on the intimate relations that exist between the physical surrounding and the physical condition of man and his morality. Churches foolishly ignore all this