But between 1600 and 1850, in the interests of producing men with high-pitched voices, thousands of Italian children were gelded like cattle. The mechanics of the operation went pretty much unchanged from the barn to the back-alley cellar. The boy was strapped to a table. A piece of twine was tied around his scrotum to cut off blood flow and a sharp knife or razor was used to slice off his testicles. The resulting wound was then cauterized with a red-hot poker or molten tar. The one concession to humanity was a dollop of liquor or opium to inhibit the pain, though often as not the practitioner would employ a technique of partial strangulation to render the child unconscious for the operation. If the kid survived the strangulation, the operation and the inevitable infection that followed, he would become - if he was very, very lucky - a member of the celebrated operatic elite known as the castrati. Now there's an exclusive club to belong to! |
