SOAS Research Online

A Free Database of the Latest Research by SOAS Academics and PhD Students

[skip to content]

Chatterton, Jocelyn and Bultitude, Matthew (2008) 'Castration; The eunuchs of Qing dynasty China; A Medical and Historical Review.' De historia urologiae Europaeae, 15. pp. 39-47.

Full text not available from this repository.

Abstract

During the Qing dynasty (1644-1912), eunuchs worked in Peking’s Imperial Palace as servants for the Imperial Family. Typically the emperor would have 2000 eunuchs in his service. They would symbolically and physically protect the emperor from the common man. By presenting themselves to be castrated, young boys and adult men in China openly showed disrespect to the traditional Confucian rules and were thus despised by Chinese society. The term “chujia”, by which eunuchs were colloquially known, actually translates as “leaving home” and they were thus called because once they became eunuchs it was too shameful to the family for them ever to return. The last eunuch, Sun Yaoting, who died in 1996, was castrated in 1910 at the age of 8 to save his father, a pancake seller, from bankruptcy.

Item Type: Journal Article
Keywords: eunuchs, Chinese history, Qing dynasty, urology, medical history
SOAS Departments & Centres: Legacy Departments > Faculty of Languages and Cultures > Department of the Languages and Cultures of China and Inner Asia
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Department of History
Subjects: D History General and Old World > DS Asia
R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
ISSN: 9789070244811
Copyright Statement: History Office E.A.U.
Date Deposited: 22 Aug 2013 10:15
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/16906

Altmetric Data

There is no Altmetric data currently associated with this item.

Statistics

Download activity - last 12 monthsShow export options
Downloads since deposit
6 month trend
0Downloads
6 month trend
4,514Hits
Accesses by country - last 12 monthsShow export options
Accesses by referrer - last 12 monthsShow export options

Repository staff only

Edit Item Edit Item