the operation of depriving a male animal of the capacity of generation.

Castration is much in use in Asia, especially among the Turks, who practise it on their slaves to prevent any commerce with their women. The Persians and other eastern nations have various methods of making eunuchs, different from those which obtain in Europe; for the operation is not always performed among them by cutting, or even by collision, cicuta and other poisonous herbs having the same effect, as is shown by Paulus Aegineta. Those eunuchised in this manner are called thibiae. But there is another sort called thlasae, in whom the genitals are left entire, and only the veins which feed them are cut, by 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. According to the laws of the Visigoths, sodomites were subjected to 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 our old writers, felony, although committed upon the highest provocation. See a record to this purpose of Henry III., transcribed by Sir Edward Coke, 3 Inst. 62.

Castration is also in some sort practised on women. Athenaeus mentions that King Andramytes was the first who castrated women; and Hesychius and Suidas state that Gyges did the same thing. Galen observes, that women cannot be castrated without danger of life; and Dalechampius, remarking on the passage of Athenaeus alluded to, holds that it is only to be understood of simple padlocking.