Mission to China by Mary Laven

Author:Mary Laven
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978–0–571–27178–8
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Published: 2011-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

5  Jesuits and Eunuchs

When the operation is about to take place, the candidate or victim – as the case may be – is placed on a kang in a sitting – or rather, reclining position. One man supports him round the waist, while two others separate his legs and hold them down firmly, to prevent any movement on his part. The operating ‘knifer’ then stands in front of the man – with his knife in his hand – and enquires if he will ever repent. If the man at the last moment demurs in the slightest, the ‘knifer’ will not perform the operation, but if he still expresses his willingness, with one sweep of the knife he is made a eunuch.

The operation is performed in this manner: white ligatures or bandages are bound tightly round the lower part of the belly and the upper parts of the thighs, to prevent too much haemorrhage. The parts about to be operated on are then bathed three times with hot pepper-water, the intended eunuch being in the reclining position as previously described. When the parts have been sufficiently bathed, the whole – both testicles and penis – are cut off as closely as possible with a small curved knife, something in the shape of a sickle. The emasculation being effected, a pewter needle or spigot is carefully thrust into the main orifice at the root of the penis; the wound is then covered with paper saturated in cold water and is carefully bound up. After the wound is dressed the patient is made to walk about the room, supported by two of the ‘knifers’, for two or three hours, when he is allowed to lie down.

The patient is not allowed to drink anything for three days, during which time he often suffers great agony, not only from thirst, but from intense pain, and from the impossibility of relieving nature during that period.

At the end of three days the bandage is taken off, the spigot is pulled out, and the sufferer obtains relief in the copious flow of urine which spurts out like a fountain. If this takes place satisfactorily, the patient is considered out of danger and congratulated on it; but if the unfortunate wretch cannot make water he is doomed to a death of agony, for the passages have become swollen and nothing can save him.1

This graphic account comes not from the pen of a sixteenth-century Jesuit, but from that of a nineteenth-century British soldier and administrator in the employ of the Chinese Maritime Customs, George Carter Stent. Published in Shanghai in 1877, Stent’s was the first comprehensive study of the Chinese palace eunuchs and of the traditional methods of castration. In the manner typical of a Victorian amateur scholar, he was not punctilious about revealing his sources, but we know that he was an exceptionally fluent speaker of Mandarin, and we may infer – from his reference to an ‘informant’ – that he had access to at least one person with direct knowledge of the procedures that he described.

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