Eunuch. This word is a synonym of castrated ; consequently, it is used to designate a male animal whom art has deprived of the faculty of reproduction. It is the custom, however, to give the name eunuch only to men who have been made to undergo this privation, and the word castrated is ordinarily used for animals. See Castration. Meanwhile the Italians have retained the words castrato, castrati , by which they designate men who have been made eunuchs in their childhood to obtain for them a clear and high voice. See Castrati.

Eunuch is a Greek word that properly signifies he whose testicles have been cut, destroyed ; the Latins call it castratus, spado .

As the word eunuch is particularly used to signify a castrated man , as we have just said, it is this meaning of the word which will be the subject of this article; and to leave nothing to be desired, it will be taken for the most part from M. de Buffon’s Natural History , vol. II of the in- 12 edition. [1]

Castration , as well as infibulation , can have no other origin than jealousy, asserts this illustrious author; these barbaric and ridiculous operations were thought up by dark and fanatical minds which, through a base envy against humankind, dictated those sad and cruel laws in which privation makes for virtue and mutilation for merit.

The Valesians, Arab heretics, made it a religious act, not only to castrate themselves, according to Origen, but also to treat in the same manner, willingly or not, all those they encountered. Epiphan. haeres. lviii. [2]

Nothing can be imagined so bizarre and ridiculous on this subject that men have not put it into practice, either out of passion or superstition. Castration has also become a means of punishment for certain crimes: it was the punishment of adultery among the Egyptians.

The use of this operation is very ancient and widespread. There were many eunuchs among the Romans. Today in all of Asia and a part of Africa these mutilated men are used to guard women. In Italy this horrible and cruel operation has no other objective than the perfection of a vain talent. Hottentots cut one testicle off of their children in the belief that this reduction makes them lighter for running. In other countries the poor mutilate their children to snuff out their posterity, and so the children will not find themselves some day in the misery and affliction their parents are in when they have no bread to give them.

There are several kinds of castrations. Those whose purpose is only perfecting the voice are content to remove the two testicles, but those who are motivated by the mistrust inspired by jealousy would not think their wives secure if they were not guarded by eunuchs of this sort; they want only those who have had all of their exterior reproductive organs removed.

Amputation is not the only means that has been used. At one time the growth of the testicles was prevented without any incision: they bathed the children in hot water and decoctions of plants, then they pressed and crushed the testicles with the fingers for long enough to bruise all their substance, and thereby destroyed their organization. Others had the custom of compressing them with an instrument; it is claimed that this latter means of depriving them of virility entails no risk of death.

Amputation of the testicles is not terribly dangerous; it can be done at any age, yet the time of childhood is preferred. But entire amputation of the exterior reproductive organs is most often mortal if done after the age of fifteen, and in choosing the most favorable age, which is from seven to ten, there is still danger. The difficulty of saving these sorts of eunuchs in the operation makes them much more expensive than the others; Tavernier says that the former cost five or six times more in Turkey and Persia.  [3] Chardin observes that total amputation is always accompanied by the most intense pain, that it is done fairly securely on young men but is very dangerous past the age of 15; that barely a quarter survive, and it takes six weeks for the wound to heal.  [4] Pietro della Valle says on the contrary that those who are subjected to this operation in Persia as a punishment for rape and other similar sorts of crimes heal quite felicitously even though advanced in age, and that they only apply ashes to the wound.  [5] We do not know whether those who once underwent the same punishment in Egypt, as Diodorus of Sicily relates, survived as fortunately: according to Thévenot, there are still large number of Negroes whom the Turks subject to this operation who die, although they take children of eight or ten years of age.  [6]

In addition to these Negro eunuchs , there are other eunuchs in Constantinople, in all of Turkey, in Persia, etc., who come for the most part from the kingdom of Golconda, from the peninsula on this side of the Ganges, from the kingdoms of Assan, Aracan, Bago, and Malabar, where they are gray; from the Gulf of Bengal, where they are of olive color; there are white ones from Georgia and Circassia, but few in number. Tavernier says that being in the kingdom of Golconda in 1657, as many as twenty-two thousand eunuchs were made. The black ones come from Africa, principally Ethiopia: these are the most sought-after and more costly the more horrible they are. They want them with a very flat nose, awful eyes, large, fat lips, and especially black teeth widely spaced. These peoples commonly have fine teeth, but it would be a flaw in a black eunuch , who must be the most hideous monster.

The eunuchs to whom they have left only the testicles still feel irritation in what remains to them and have its exterior sign, even more frequently than other men; [7] this part which was left them has only grown a little if the castration was practiced on them in childhood, for it remains in about the same state it was in before the operation. A eunuch made at the age of seven is in this regard, at twenty, like a child of seven; those who, on the contrary, underwent the operation only during puberty, or a little later, are about like other men.

“There are singular connections between the reproductive organs and those of the chest,” continues M. de Buffon; “ eunuchs have no beard; their voice, though strong and piercing, is never a dark one; the correspondence of certain parts of the human body with others quite distant and quite different, and which is here so pronounced, could be observed much more generally; but not enough attention is paid to the effects when one does not suspect what the causes might be. It is no doubt for this reason that no one has ever thought to examine these correspondences, on which however depends a large part of the play of the animal machine, carefully in the human body. There is considerable correspondence in women between the womb, the breasts, and the head; how many others might one not discover if the great physicians turned their eyes in that direction? It seems to me that that would be more useful than the nomenclature of anatomy.”

Physicians have not so neglected the observation of these connections as M. de Buffon seems to be thinking here. Those who are versed in medicine know that this observation is on the contrary one of those which have most occupied them since the time of Hippocrates; but even were M. de Buffon’s desires in this regard absolutely justified, we could even now consider them accomplished. We have modern works that have precisely as their subject those correspondences between different parts of the human body, or in which it is occasionally discussed; we could consider as a production of the first sort Specimen novi Medicinae conspectus (Paris, Guérin), and the thesis of Mr. Bordeu, physician at the University of Montpellier, regent of the faculty of medicine in Paris, in which he proposes to examine an omnes corporis partes digestioni opitulentur (1752), and concludes in the affirmative.  [8] A work of the second kind is another thesis of his, in the form of a dissertation on the question utrum Aquitaniae minerales aquae morbis chronicis (1754), in which one finds excellent things, particularly on the correspondences in question.  [9]

“It will be observed,” says M. de Buffon, in concluding on the matter in question, “that this correspondence between the voice and the reproductive organs can be recognized not only in eunuchs , but also in other men, and even in women: the voice changes in men at the age of puberty, and women who have strong voices are suspected of having a stronger inclination to love.”

That is how the great physician with whom we have just been concerned limits himself to giving the history of the facts when the causes appear hidden; this conduct is doubtless quite imitable for all who write in this vein.

But must the reservation which one must have in order to try to account for the singular phenomena that nature presents be so general that it always keeps the imagination in chains? Weak eyesight is not a reason not to use our eyes; even when we are reduced to groping our way, we sometimes reach our goal. Therefore, it seems it must be permitted to attempt explanations. However little hope we have of doing so successfully, it is enough not to be absolutely devoid of hope, and that it may be useful to succeed, which happens, it seems, when we give accepted principles as basis for the explanations, when they are only the consequences we draw from them, and we can make advantageous application of those consequences. It is with that thought that I feel authorized to propose here an opinion on the cause of the change that occurs in the male voice when children reach the age of puberty, and consequently on the reasons for which women and eunuchs do not undergo that change.

This opinion is based on that of M. Ferrein on the mechanism of the voice. [10] This famous anatomist attributes it, as is well known, to the vibrations of the edges of the glottis, similar to those observed in stringed instruments; this opinion is accepted by numerous physiologists, and is indeed entitled to a place among the ingenious and plausible, or at least arguable, hypotheses.

The ligaments of the glottis, which the author calls ribbons , because they are like flat cords, resemble the strings of instruments where they are the means of sound. Since these ribbons produce higher or lower sounds depending on how stretched they are by the organs in place, they are consequently capable of more or less numerous vibrations. These sounds must also be high or low, other things being equal, as these ribbons are proportionately broad or frail, just as stringed instruments produce treble or bass sounds depending on the different thickness of the strings with which they are strung.

That given, we consider, first, that the seminal fluid which is prepared in the testicles at the age of puberty is not destined solely to serve reproduction beyond the individual who supplies it, but also has a very great usefulness in that it is pumped from its reservoirs by absorbent vessels, and that, carried by the mass of humours, it joins with the one with which it has the greatest analogy, which is doubtless the nourishing lymph, judging by the simultaneous effects; that to that lymph, which could be called the essence of humours , it gives the property of supplying the sustenance and repair of the elements of the body, of its primary fibers, in a more solid way, by furnishing denser molecules than the ones they replace. Secondly, that this fluid thus renders the texture of all parts stronger and more compact, which henceforth establishes the difference of constitution between the sexes. Third, that this increase of strength in the fibers composing male bodies is a cause added to those that produce the increase of strength in the two sexes, in that it is but the effect of simple growth, by which supplementary cause is formed a sort of rigidity in the fibers of men in puberty which becomes proper to them. Fourth, that it is this rigidity, all things being equal, which makes men more robust and vigorous in general than women, more able to bear fatigue and even the violence of exercise, bodily work, etc. Does it not follow from this that, this rigidity, establishing itself proportionally in all parts of the body in the natural state, should make the consequent changes nowhere as noticeable as in the organs of which the least alteration makes more easily perceptible than in the others an observable difference in the exercise of their functions? These organs are, unquestionably, the ligaments of the glottis relative to the modifications of the sounds which they have the faculty of producing by their vibrations caused by the rubbing of the columns or wisps of air that act like a bow, in modum plectri , [11] on these membranous and flexible ligaments; these, made thicker and stronger by the supplementary cause which is common to all organs in males, in other words the addition of the seminal fluid to the nutritive lymph, must be more difficult to agitate, and be capable, caeteris paribus , [12] of only a smaller number, but more extensive, vibrations: consequently the sounds they produce must be less high and then become lower and lower, in inverse proportion to the increase in thickness and rigidity in the fibers that make up the vocal cords, which is what needed to be established for the explanation in question. From it follows the explanation of everything connected to this principal phenomenon, which is the change of voice at the time when the sperm begins to separate in the testicles.

It is easy to account for the fact that eunuchs do not undergo this change at that age: they follow in all respects the destiny of women. Their bodies, like those of women, is strengthened only by the single cause of growth which they share; they consequently remain infirm like them, with a shrill voice like them; like them they are deprived of the open mark of virility, which is the beard, for the growth of which apparently a more plastic nourishing fluid is required, such as is prepared in the bodies of males, in a greater degree of systolic force in solids in general, a force which produces this effect on the chin, and others proportionate, in all parts of the body, such as a greater vigor in the muscles, more activity in the organs of secretion, etc.

These conjectures on the causes of beardlessness seem all the better founded when we see men with a delicate and almost feminine temperament having no or very little of that sort of hair; and contrariwise vigorous and robust women having on the chin, especially on the upper lip, long and stiff enough hairs to be also called beard . For we must observe on this subject that all women have hairs on these parts of the face, as on several other parts of the body, but that hair is ordinarily like down and hardly noticeable, especially for blonds; that men also have hair on almost all parts of the body, but more abundant, other things being equal, than that of women; that there are nevertheless women who are more hairy than certain men, of whom some have very little hair, especially eunuchs , to the degree that they are of a more delicate and effeminate temperament, and vice versa . It is this observation that gave rise to the expression vir pilosus et fortis et luxuriosus ; [13] that is consequently again a sort of correspondence between hair and the reproductive organs, from which we can draw a consequence advantageous to the given explanation; whence we are even more entitled to conclude that the different constitution seems to make all the difference in the two sexes, and that the stronger constitution in men depends principally on the seminal fluid. But on all these particularities, see Body Hair.

We shall end this research into the nature of the cause which has just been established concerning the consequences of the separation of the spermatic liquor with respect especially to the voice, by seconding the theory which has been given of these effects with the following observations. Adults whose testicles have been removed, by accident or in any other manner, become effeminate, slowly lose their bodily strength and beard; in a word, their temperament entirely degenerates; but the change is especially noticeable with respect to the voice, which from male and dark as it was becomes shrill and high-pitched like that of women. Boerhaave, Comment. in propr. instit., § 658, mentions a soldier who had experienced all these effects after losing his testicles to a gunshot.  [14] Young men who contract the criminal habit of abusing themselves by masturbation, or who make too early and too immoderate use of the venereal exercise, weakening themselves by excessive evacuation of semen taken from the mass of humours, often lose their voice, or at least cease acquiring a lower one, and if it has not yet had time to drop it remains shrill and high like those of women for longer than is natural, which is sometimes never well repaired if the cause of this disorder has become habitual, because all the other parts of the body remain proportionately weak, etc. See Masturbation.

Serious illnesses, which cause considerable weight loss and marasmus, also produce changes in the voice, making it high and shrill, even in those who had a deeper voice, a change that must be distinguished, and which is really very different from weakness of the voice, which is also very often another effect of the same alleged causes. As these changes in the habitual pitch of the voice that have just been reported can be attributed only to the failure of repair in the solid parts, in the fibers in general, and in particular in those that compose the ligaments of the glottis, in which the decrease in volume is proportional to that which occurs in all the other parts; this leaves, it seems, almost no doubt as to the truth of the explanation that has just been proposed, which seems moreover to have some possible utility, with no disadvantage in medicinal practice, through the ulterior consequences it can furnish concerning the different effects of the same illnesses compared in the two sexes, in male children and adults, and in eunuchs , concerning the disposition of certain illnesses which are found more in one of the states than in another. We will limit ourselves here to citing one example from which the consequence can be drawn for many others. According to Pison, vol. II, page 384, eunuchs and women are not subject to gout, nor are young persons before they have venereal experiences. Indeed, contrary observations are very rare, etc . See Semen, Voice, and Gout.

1. Georges Louis Leclerc de Buffon, Histoire naturelle générale et particulière, (Paris, 1749), 2 : 482-88.

2. « Against Valesians, » in The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis (Leiden: Brill, 2009), book II, pp. 100-104

3. Jean-Baptiste Tavernier (1605–1689), Les Six Voyages de Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, ecuyer baron d’Aubonne, qu’il a fait en Turquie, en Perse, et aux Indes, pendant l’espace de quarante ans (Paris, 1676-77).

4. Jean Chardin (1643–1713), Voyages du chevalier Chardin en Perse et autres lieux de l’Orient (Amsterdam, Delorme, 1711 ; link is to 1811 edition published in Paris).

5. There are many Italian editions of the travels of Pietro Della Valle (1586–1652) ; A French edition was published in Paris in 1745 : Voyages de Pietro Della Valle, gentilhomme romain, dans la Turquie, l’Égypte, la Palestine, La Perse, Les Indes orientales, et autres lieux.

6. Jean de Thévenot (1633–1667), Relation d’un voyage fait au Levant (Paris, 1664).

7. A somewhat euphemistic way of say they are still capable of erections.

8. “Not all parts of the body are helped by digestion.” Théophile de Bordeu (1722–1776), thesis, 1752.

9. “Whether to prescribe mineral waters of Aquitaine for chronic illnesses.”

10. Antoine Ferrein (1693–1769), De la formation de la voix de l’homme, published in the Mémoires of the Académie royale des sciences (1741).

11. “Like a pick” (as for a mandolin).

12. “Other things being equal.”

13. “A luxuriantly hairy man.”

14. Herman Boerhaave (1668–1738), Institutiones rei medicae in usus annuae exercitationis domesticos (Leiden, 1708; link is to a 1721 edition).