An Onymus (imported) wrote: Fri Oct 10, 2003 5:46 am Since the blood vessels from which substantial hemorrhaging could occur, would seem ordinarily to be only those in the seminal cords, you would think that someone doing this type of surgery, could administer a local anesthetic to the seminal cords, tie them off with absorbable suturing thread (possibly also a membrane patch), and then sever the cords below the threads, with the loss of only a few drops of blood. The suturing thread would be left on when the scrotum was sutured, to prevent postoperative hemorrhaging. But, of course, you still have to know exactly what you're doing when you embark on any surgery. And, even then, a lot of operations turn out to be harrowing adventures, regardless of the training or competence of the surgeon.
You're absolutely correct, and the cutters that have successfully castrated dozens of candidates do exactly this. The problem is that the task is harder to accomplish than your simple description might indicate. Both expressing the testicles outside the sac and then tying off the cords require a certain amount of skill, more than a lot o' amateurs or naive observers might believe.
My cutter experienced some difficulty in closing down blood flow in the cords to nil. Remember, the blood is flowing the whole time he's trying to close it down. However, he was both patient and careful. He wouldn't have even considered severing the cord 'til until he was 100% certain that all of blood flow had been successfully stopped. Some cutters - and doctors - cauterise the cord as they cut. You don't mention it, but the use of hemostatic clamps was key to this procedure.