arem 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 Sterilite 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 performe