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

Castration is common in the East, especially among the Turks, who castrate their slaves, particularly those attached to the harem. The Persians and others had various methods of making eunuchs; namely, by the administration of cicuta and other poisonous herbs, which, according to Paulus Aegineta, have the same effect; or leaving the organs entire, but dividing the vessels, so as to render the parts lax and weak.

Athenaeus relates that Andranymles, king of Lydia, castrated women; and Hesychius and Suidas state that Gyges did the same. Dalecampius, however, remarking on the passage of Athenaeus alluded to, maintains that it merely refers to an artificial kind of protection. The effect of castration on the voice is well known. It is said that within a very recent period castrati were found among the singers in the papal chapel; but if this still be the case, there seems every probability that the disagreeable effect of the association connected with this peculiarity of voice will soon render obsolete the practice of castration for such a purpose.

See EUNUCH.

By the civil law it is 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 of Henry III. to this purport, transcribed by Sir Edward Coke, 3 Inst. 62.