Note 627 — 2. RAPE.
Reading edition
The period and manner of mutilation have considerable influence on the effects of the process. The complete removal of all the external organs is a much more decisive method of annihilating the propensities connected with them, than any partial amputation, or compression, or ligature of the spermatic cords—“Si soli testiculi abscissi fuerint, non auferuntur desideria; imo sunt valde magna, in quibus peccare possunt ... sed possunt deflorare quamcunque mulierem, nullam tamen impregnare. 1. Valent. Pand. p. 136, vide etiam a p. 62, usque ad 222. De Conjugio Eunuchi.”
The operation is also more effectual when performed in early infancy, than after the period of puberty; venereal desires have been known to subsist in considerable force, and with the usual external signs, even after the removal of the testes in the adult; thus Juvenal, in satirising the vices of the Roman women, says—
“Sunt quas Eunuchi imbelles, ac mollia semper
“Oscula delectant,”——