Remondino, Chapt. 8, part 4

[JesusA (imported)]

Remondino, Chapter VIII

History 0f Emasculation, Castration, and Eunuchism.

From Constantinople the fashion or custom gradually invaded Italy; and as Rome was the centre of the new religion, so it also became the centre of music, and Rome and Naples were soon the home of the eunuch devoted or immolated to the science of music. The eunuchs reached the height of their renown in music, as well as what might be termed their golden era, with the establishment of the Italian opera, in the seventeenth century. At this period all the stages of Italy were the scenes of the lyric triumphs of this otherwise unfortunate class, some of whom accumulated vast fortunes. In the following century, as has been seen, Clement XVI abolished the practice as far as the church was concerned, and in the present century the first Napoleon abolished the practice secularly and socially. Mankind cannot sufficiently appreciate the benefits it received from the results of the French Revolution; we are too apt to look at that event simply from the unavoidable means which an uneducated class - rendered desperate by long suffering and brutalization under an organized system of oppressive misrule - had adopted to remedy existing evils. After the dissolution of the Directory France cannot be said to have been in a state of anarchy, and the long and bloody wars with which Napoleon is usually blamed should rather be charged to that government and imbecile ministerial policy that lost to England the American colonies. The series of battles from Marengo to Waterloo are as much the creation of the cabinet of George III as those from Concord to Yorktown. Waterloo involved more than the simple defeat of Napoleon; it meant the defeat of moral and intellectual progress, as well as the suppression of the rights of man. The suppression of the Inquisition in Spain, and of eunuchism in Italy; the Cod Napoleon; the Imperial highways of France; the construction of its harbors, - notably that of Havre; and the political and social emancipation of the Jews in France, Italy, and Germany are monuments to this great man that have not their equals to crown the acts of any other French monarch. Like the Phrygian monk who leaped into the area in Rome to separate the maddened gladiators, and who was stoned to death by the angry and brutal mob of spectators whose amusement he stopped, Napoleon's work has had its results, in spite of Waterloo and St. Helena. The martyrdom of the poor monk caused an abolishment of the brutal sports of the Colosseum, which henceforth crumbled to pieces. Little did the people look for this result who trampled the monk under foot. Neither did Blucher, debauching on the English left with Bulow's battalions on the evening of Waterloo, foresee, some fifty years later, Prussia extending its hand to make a united Italy, which with Napoleon - who was by blood, nature, instinct, and education an Italian - had been the dream and ambition of his life.

Eunuchism as a punishment is an old practice, as the ancient Egyptians inflicted it at times upon their prisoners of war; so it formed part of their penal code, and we are told that rape was punished by the loss of the virile organ; a like punishment for the same offense was in vogue with the Spaniards and Britons; with the Romans at different times and with the Poles the punishment was castration. The difficulty of proving the crime, as well as the ease with which the crime could be charged through motives of revenge, spite, or cupidity on innocent persons, should never have allowed this form of punishment to be so generally used as history relates that it was; rape being one of the most complex and intricate of medico-legal subjects, unless we take M. Voltaire's summary and Solomonic judgment, who relates that a queen, who did not wish to listen to a charge of rape made by one person against another, took the scabbard of a sword and, while she dept the open end in motion, asked the accuser to sheath the sword.

Count Raoul Du Bisson, 'Dedjaz de l'Abyssinie,' gives some very interesting information in regard to eunuchism in his work entitled "The Women, the Eunuchs, and the Warriors of the Soudan." Count Bissou has looked on the question from its moral, physical, and demographic stand-points, and, having seen eunuchism in its different aspects, from his landing at Alexandria and Cairo, down through his different expeditions into Arabia, the Soudan, and Abyssina, his observations are well worth repeating.

From a demographic and statistical view of the subject, its truly Malthusian results become at once shockingly and persistently prominent, -not alone in the interference that the condition induces in arresting any further procreation on the part of the unfortunate victims, but in the unparalleled mortality that, in the gross, is made necessary by the results of the operative procedures. The Soudan alone furnished, according to reliable statistics, some 3800 eunuchs annually, the material coming from Abyssinia and the neighboring countries, it being gathered by war and kidnapping parties, or by purchase, from among the young male population of those regions. These children are brought to the Soudan frontier and custom duties are there paid for their passage across the border, the duty being about two dollars per head. At Karthoum they are purchased by pharmacists, apothecaries, and others engaged in the manufacture of eunuchs, who generally perform simple castration; the mortality among these amounts to about 33 per cent. These simply castrated eunuchs bring about $200 apiece. The great eunuch factory of the country, however, is to be found on Mount Ghebel-Eter, at Abou-Gerghe; here a large Coptic monastery exists, where the unfortunate little African children are gathered. The building is a large, square structure, resembling an ancient fortress; on the ground-floor the operating-room is situated, with all the appliances required to perform these horrible operations. The Coptic monks do a thriving business, and furnish Constantinople, Arabia, and Asia Minor with many of their complete, much-sought-for, and expensive eunuchs. They here manufacture both grades, -those who are simply castrated and those on whom complete ablation of all organs has been performed, the latter bringing from $750 to $1000 per head, as only the most robust are taken for this operation, which nevertheless, even at the monastery, has a mortality of 90 per cent.

The manner of performing the operation is as barbarous and revolting as the nature of the operation itself, and the cruel and ignorant after-treatment is as fully in keeping with the whole. The little, helpless and unfortunate prisoner or slave is stretched out on an operating-table; his neck is made fast in a collar fastened to the table, and his legs spread apart and the ankles made fast to iron rings; his arms are each held by an assistant. The operator then seizes the little penis and scrotum and with one sweep of a sharp razor removes all the appendages. The resulting wound necessarily bares the pubic bones and leaves a large, gaping sore that does not heal kindly. A short bamboo cannula or catheter is then introduced into the urethra, from which it is allowed to project for about two inches, and no attention is paid to any arterial haemorrhage; the whole wound is simply plastered up with some haemostatic compound and the little victim is then buried in the warm sand up to his neck, being exposed to the host, scorching rays of the sun; the sand and soil is tightly packed about his little body so as to prevent any possibility of any movement on the part of the child, perfect immobility being considered by the monks as the main element required to promote a successful result. IT IS ESTIMATED THAT 35,000 LITTLE AFRICANS ARE ANNUALLY SACRIFICED TO PRODUCE THE SOUDANESE AVERAGE QUOTA OF ITS 3800 EUNUCHS. [Italicized in the original]

When this immense sacrifice of life, the useless barbarity, and the really unnecessary needs of such mutilated humanity existing are fully considered, it would seem as if Christian nations might, with some reason, interfere in this horrible traffic, by the side of which ordinary slavery seems but a trifle. When we further consider that, in some instances, the child is also made mute by the excision of part of the tongue, -as mute or dumb eunuchs are less apt to enter into intrigues, and are therefore higher prized, -the barbarity, cruelty, and extremes of inhumanity that these poor children have to suffer cannot be over-estimated. Neither must we be astonished at the stolid indifference that is exhibited by the eunuchs in after life to any or all sentiments of humanity, or that they should hold the rest of humanity in continual execration.