CASTRATION, in Surgery, the operation of gelding, i. e. of cutting off the testicles, and putting a male animal out of the capacity of generation.
Castration is in much use in Asia, especially among the Turks, who practise it on their slaves, to prevent any commerce with their women. The Turks often make a general amputation.
Castration also obtains in Italy, where it is used with a view to preserve the voice for singing. See EUNUCH.
The Persians, and other eastern nations, have divers methods of making eunuchs, different from those which obtain in Europe: we say, of making eunuchs, for it is not always done among them by cutting, or even collision. Cicuta and other poisonous herbs do the same office, as is shown by Paulus Ægineta. Those eunuchified in this manner are called thalassia. Besides which there is another sort called thalassia, in whom the genitals are left entire, and only the veins which should feed them are cut; but which means the parts do indeed remain, but so lax and weak, as to be of no use.
Castration was for some time the punishment of adultery. By the laws of the Visigoths, sodomites underwent the same punishment.
By the civil law it is made penal in physicians and surgeons to castrate, even with consent of the party, who is himself included in the same penalty, and his effects forfeited. The offence of Mayhem by castration is, according to all our old writers, felony; though committed upon the highest provocation. See a record to this purpose of Henry III. transcribed by Sir Edward Coke, 3 Inst. 62. or Blackstone's Com. vol. iv. p. 206.
Castration is sometimes found necessary on medicinal considerations, as in mortifications, and some other diseases of the testicles, especially the sarcocoele and varicocele. Some have also used it in maniac cases.