The older records are full of such
instances. Benivenius, Blanchard, Knackstedt, and Schenck cite
cases. Smetius mentions castration which was effected by using
the finger-nails, and there is an old record in which a man
avulsed his own genitals. Scott mentions an instance in which a
man amputated his genitals and recovered without subsequent
symptoms. Gockelius speaks of self-castration in a ruptured man,
and Golding, Guyon, Louis, Laugier, the Ephemerides, Alix,
Marstral, and others, record instances of self- castration. In
his Essays Montaigne mentions an instance of complete castration
performed by the individual himself.
Thiersch mentions a case of a man who circumcised himself when
eighteen. He married in 1870, and upon being told that he was a
father he slit up the hypogastrium from the symphysis pubis to
the umbilicus, so that the omentum protruded; he said his object
was to obtain a view of the interior. Although the knife was
dirty and blunt, the wound healed after the removal of the
extruding omentum. A year later he laid open one side of the
scrotum. The prolapsed testicle was replaced, and the wound
healed without serious effect. He again laid open his abdomen in
1880, the wound again healing notwithstanding the prolapse of the
omentum.
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