Castration; The eunuchs of Qing dynasty China; A Medical and Historical Review

Chatterton, Jocelyn; Bultitude, Matthew

Abstract

During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), eunuchs worked in Peking’s Imperial Palace as servants for the Imperial Family. Typically the emperor would have 2000 eunuchs in his service. They would symbolically and physically protect the emperor from the common man. By presenting themselves to be castrated, young boys and adult men in China openly showed disrespect to the traditional Confucian rules and were thus despised by Chinese society. The term “chujia”, by which eunuchs were colloquially known, actually translates as “leaving home” and they were thus called because once they became eunuchs it was too shameful to the family for them ever to return. The last eunuch, Sun Yaoting, who died in 1996, was castrated in 1910 at the age of 8 to save his father, a pancake seller, from bankruptcy.

Citation

Chatterton, J., & Bultitude, M. (2008). Castration; The eunuchs of Qing dynasty China; A Medical and Historical Review

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Publication Date: Jan 1, 2008
• Deposit Date: Aug 22, 2013
• Journal: De historia urologiae Europaeae
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 15
• Pages: 39-47
• Keywords: eunuchs, Chinese history, Qing dynasty, urology, medical history
• Publisher URL: https://www.uroweb.org/publications/de-historia-urologiae-europaeae/
• Additional Information: Copyright Statement : History Office E.A.U.; Additional Information : ISBN: 9789070244811; References : Dale, M.S., With the Cut of a Knife: A Social History of Eunuchs during the Qing Dynasty (1644 – 1911) and Republican Periods (1912 – 1949), Ph.D Thesis, Georgetown University, Washington D.C., 2000. Jay, J.W., “Another Side of Chinese Eunuch History: Castration, Marriage, Adoption, and Burial” in Canadian Journal of History, / Annales Canadiennes d’Histoire XXV111, December/Decembre, 1993, pp. 459 – 478. Mitamura, T., Chinese Eunuchs: the Structure of Intimate Politics, Rutland, Vermont and Tokyo, Charles E. Tuttle Company, 1992. The North China Herald, Fire in the Imperial Palace, Peking, June 30th 1923. The North China Herald, A Forbidden City Sensation: Ex-Emperor’s Peremptory Dismissal of Eunuchs, July 21st, 1923. Robinson, D., Bandits, Eunuchs and the Son of Heaven: Rebellion and the Economy of Violence in Mid-Ming China, Honolulu, University of Hawai’i Press, 2001. Scotland, T., My Search for the Last Eunuch, in The Sunday Review, The Sunday Telegraph, January 5th 1997, p. 6. Tsai, S. H., The Eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty, New York, State University of New York Press, 1995. Wilson, J.D., “Long-Term Consequences of Castration in Men: Lessons from the Skoptzy and the Eunuchs of the Chinese and Ottoman Courts” in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism. Vol. 84, No 12, University of Texas, 1993, pp. 4324 – 4331.