Castration
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Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy, while chemical castration uses pharmaceutical drugs to deactivate the testes. Castration causes sterilization ; it also greatly reduces the production of hormones, such as testosterone and estrogen. Surgical castration in animals is often called neutering.
A 15th century Ottoman medical illustration by Sabuncuoğlu Şerafeddin depicting an operation for castration
The Castration of Uranus: fresco by Vasari & Cristofano Gherardi (c. 1560, Sala di Cosimo I, Palazzo Vecchio, Florence)
The procedure of castration as punishment during the 16th century
An Italian soldier who was castrated and emasculated during the Second Italo-Ethiopian War.
Héloïse
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Héloïse, variously Héloïse d'Argenteuil or Héloïse du Paraclet, was a French nun, philosopher, writer, scholar, and abbess.
Jean-Baptiste Goyet, Héloïse et Abailard, oil on copper, c. 1829.
Heloise takes the habit at Argenteuil
Heloise at the Abbey of the Paraclete by Jean-Baptiste Mallet