igines and his
monks and excluded eunuchs from its presbytery on the ground that such
beings lack the moral and physical energy requisite in a calling that is
supposed to guide or lead men; moreover, there are many reasons for
doubting that the ministers of state and the generals of the reigns
above mentioned were actually eunuchs in the full acceptance of the
word. Among the ancients there were several methods of performing the
operations that made the eunuchs; some were more effectual than others.
From the removal of _all_ the genitals, or the penis alone, or the
scrotum and testicles, or removing only the testicles, down to
compression or to distorting the spermatic vessels, or, as in the case
of the Scythians, who often became eunuchs from bareback riding, as
Hammond describes a eunuchism manufactured by our southwestern Indians
of New Mexico and Arizona, are performances that left many degrees of
eunuchism; as we find some eunuchs that not only contracted marriage,
but engendered children. Voltaire mentions Kislav-aga, of
Constantinople, a eunuch _a outrance_, with neither penis, scrotum, nor
anything, who owned a large and select harem. Montesquieu, in his
"Persian Letters," admits this class of marriages as being practiced,
but doubts the resulting conjugal felicity, especially on the part of
the wife. Potiphar's wife was one of these unfortunate wives; no wonder
that she tore Joseph's cloak in her desire. Juvenal mentions that some
eunuchs were held in high esteem by the Roman matrons; it possibly could
have been some of this kind of a eunuch that led armies or ruled in the
palaces. Among the sultans and Oriental potentates those who had every
exterior evidence of virility removed, so as to be obliged to micturate
through the means of a catheter, were considered the safest guards, as
well as they were the highest-priced eunuchs, for in their manufacture
fully 75 per cent. of those operated upon died as a result. It is
related that the Caribs made eunuchs of their prisoners of war on the
same principle that caponizing is resorted to for our kitchens,--the
prisoners were easier to fatten and were more tender when cooked. The
Italians allowed their children to be eunuchized for chorister purposes
in church services, their soprano voices after this treatment being
simply perfect. It was considered that, in the year prior to the papal
ordinance of Pope Clement XVI forbidding the practice or the employment
of eunuchs i