What were the Eunuchs exactly!?

[Nathan Ross]

The removal of the balls themselves is not really mayor surgery and certainly in Roman times could have been performed without any danger of bleeding out.

The 7th century doctor Paul of Aegina provides one of the few accounts of surgical castration from the period. His work is quoted in the paper Milo linked above, but there's a fuller relation of it here:

Women, Men and Eunuchs

The next page mentions a law of Justinian claiming that only three out of a sample ninety people castrated survive the operation! So not as neat as all that then... :eek: