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 kept 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 Bisson 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 Abyssinia, 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 victim, 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-Gerghè; 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 hæmorrhage; the whole wound is simply plastered up with some hæmostatic compound and the little victim is then buried in the warm sand up to his neck, being exposed to the hot, 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.
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 overestimated. 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.
Often-occurring accidents in harems make complete eunuchs a desideratum. Bisson mentions that on one occasion he saw the chief eunuch of the Grand Cherif of Mecca—a large, finely-proportioned, powerful black—on his way to Stamboul for trial and sentence; he was heavily chained and well guarded. It appears that the eunuch had only been partly castrated, and that the operation had been performed during infancy; his testicles had not fully descended, so that in the operation the sac was simply obliterated, which gave him the appearance of a eunuch. In this condition he seemed to have kept a perfect control of himself and passions until made chief eunuch of the Cherif, who possessed a well-assorted harem of choice Circassian, Georgian, and European beauties. The négligé toilet of the harem bath and the seductive influence of this terrestrial Koranic seventh heaven was too much for the warm Soudanese blood of the chief; his forays were not suspected until a blonde Circassian houri presented her lord and master, the Cherif, with a suspiciously mulatto-looking son and heir. A consultation of the Koran failed to explain this discrepancy, and suspicion pointed to the chief eunuch, who was accordingly watched; it was found that he had not only corrupted the fair Circassian, but every inmate of the harem as well. The harem was promptly sacked and drowned and the false eunuch shipped to the Sultan for sentence, the Cherif having the right to sentence and drown the harem, but having no such rights over such a high personage as the chief eunuch.
There are physiological facts and pathological conditions brought forth for our contemplation, while investigating the subject of eunuchism in all its details, that cause us to feel that, after all, the old Hippocratic principle of inductive philosophy, upon which our study and practice of medicine is founded, with rational experience and observation for its corner-stone, is, even if commonplace, the only proper avenue of knowledge. To exemplify this proposition we have in this particular subject the practical observations and experience of M. Mondat, of Montpellier; in his interesting work on “De la Stérilité de l’Homme et de la Femme,” published in 1840, he details some instructive information on the subject of eunuchs, giving some explanation as to why many simply castrated eunuchs are, like the much-prized eunuchs of the Roman matrons, still able to acquit themselves of the copulative function. He mentions that while in Turkey he studied the subject in its details, and, having found some of these copulating eunuchs, he secured some of the ejaculated fluid and subjected it to a careful examination. The discharge was lacking the characteristic seminal odor; it was in other respects, to the palpation especially, very much like the seminal fluid. He found that these eunuchs were much given to venereal enjoyment, but that either legitimate intercourse or masturbation, to which many were addicted, was apt to be followed by a marasmus ending in galloping consumption. Mondat personally knew the opera-singer Velutti, who died in London; Velutti was, when a child, castrated by his parents, having both testicles removed, being intended by his father, who had himself performed the operation, for the choir of the Papal Chapel at Rome. Velutti was as much of a favorite in his day as our present tenors and handsome actors. The admiration of the opposite sex was fatal to him; he formed a liaison with a young English lady residing in London, and the resulting excesses in which he indulged quickly brought him to his grave. He was passionately fond of women and was able to acquit himself perfectly; at least, as far as the copulative act—barring fecundation—was concerned.
In a previous part of this chapter I have alluded to the very appropriate arrangement which formerly existed when music-teachers were eunuchs, and that our higher circles of society would do well to employ eunuchized coachmen, especially if possessed of susceptible and elopable daughters; but, from the accounts given by Mondat, it would seem that they are not as safe as might at first be imagined. However, they could not be as dangerous as the chief eunuch of the Grand Cherif of Mecca and increase the population to the same extent; but I should judge that they might be a very demoralizing moral element if introduced into modern society. If eunuchs must be employed, it can easily be understood why the Turk and Chinese prefer the real, clean-cut article. The New York “Four Hundred” should make a note of this, as in their present thirst for European aristocratic notions, coats of arms and titles, there is no telling how soon they may cross over into Oriental customs and run a harem, in which case it would be sad to have them make any mistakes in the quality and ability of the eunuch.
Dr. Gardner W. Allen has furnished the American profession with a faithful translation of the valuable work of Professor Ultzmann on “Sterility and Impotence.” In this, we have a clear and intelligent dissertation that explains the above conditions, and I am only surprised that the observations of Mondat have not developed such explanations before, as the principle was fully explained in practice fifty years ago by the Montpellier physician. According to Ultzmann, there is a form of fecundating impotence in persons otherwise well provided with an apparent complete apparatus, an impotence which he terms potentia generandi. He states, however, that this form of impotence was not recognized until a few years ago, citing the fact that females have had, as a rule, to bear all of the blame for the unfruitfulness of the family, and that they have been accordingly subjected to all manner of operations, general and local treatment, even to being sent to watering places and sanatoria where red-headed male attendants are employed, to say nothing of the prayers, intercessions, pilgrimages, and novenas to the holy shrines, as mentioned in the chapter on the holy prepuce. Ultzmann observes that a man may be perfectly able to go through the procreative or, rather, the copulative act, even to the great satisfaction of all parties concerned, and yet be perfectly impotent; he even goes further, by observing that there are cases in which copulation may take place without any fluid whatever being ejaculated. He mentions two such cases at pages 87 and 116 of his book. In the first instance the ejaculated fluid is precisely as that observed in such cases as those of the eunuchs and of Velutti, mentioned by Mondat, and consisted of an azoöspermic discharge, made up mainly from the secretion of the seminal vesicles, the accessory glands of the urethra, the prostate, and Cowper’s glands, as well as the discharge from the secretory glands distributed along the course of the urethral mucous membrane. Some of the cases of this form of impotence have exhibited wonderful copulating desire and power of endurance, and, even if unfecundating, they must be said to be better off than the victims of that other form of male impotence, the potentia coeundi of Ultzmann, where, with a normal semen, either the power of erection or that of ejaculation may be entirely absent.