Castration

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Castration (of ‘intersect’, ‘demanned’, ‘castrated’, also ‘weakening, depriving’) means the removal or deactivation of the gonads and thus the elimination of fertility of living beings, which results in a form of hypogonadism. Surgically performed, it is referred to in medical jargon as gonadectomy; removal of the testicles in the man as an orchiectomy; removal of the ovaries in the woman as an ovarianectomy. If only one of the two gonads is removed, e.g. because of a tumor, one speaks of a partial castration (semicastration).

The destruction of the germinal function by ionizing radiation (X-ray castration, menolysis) and the reversible suppression of hormone production by drugs (“chemical castration”, for example by the antiandrogenic cyproterone acetate, as well as immunocastration) are not castration in the narrower or in the vernacular sense.

A bloodless castration is present when the gonads (especially the testes) are switched off by pinching off the blood vessels supplying them (see below).

Person

Voluntary Castration of Men

From Lukian comes the classical tradition about Kombabus, who had castrated himself as a travel companion of the Syrian king's wife before by his own decision.

Castrations for medical reasons were already known in antiquity. So one was based up to the 17. The treatment of gout carried out by castration on a Hippocratic aphorism ("The eunuchs neither get podagra nor become bald"). Such a procedure has also been used for leprosy, epilepsy and other diseases.

Castration can be used in the treatment of prostate carcinoma. Since prostate cancers are testosterone-dependent in many cases, after the removal of the testicle (orchiectomy), there is usually a significant decline or stoppage of the disease, so that the patient can usually live symptom-free for years.

Compulsory castration of men

Castration as genital mutilation of men has been carried out throughout human history in many peoples and cultures. To defeated enemies for humiliation and demonstration of power, so that they can more easily take their wives, and to slaves, especially those who should guard a harem (see eunuch).

Adult prisoners of war or slaves have also been castrated in order not only to humiliate them, but also to make them more docile, as the loss of testicles due to severe reduction of testosterone reduces the willingness to aggression.

According to various sources, the mythical Assyrian Queen Semiramis was one of the first rulers to order the castration of captured enemies.

During the time of the Arab slave trade, castration was the usual practice of the slave traders for African men