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date: 25 January 2025

Castration 

Source:
Oxford Encyclopedia of the Islamic World: Digital Collection
Author(s):
Serena TolinoSerena Tolino

Castration, scientifically called gonadectomy, is the action by which a male loses the use of his testicles. It can be done through a surgical procedure, with excision of one or both testicles (surgical castration) or through the use of pharmaceutical drugs that inactivate the testicles (chemical castration). It is also practiced on animals in order to favor a desired development of the species, to prevent overpopulation, or to produce a particular kind of meat for nutrition purposes. The term castration can also refer to the removal of the ovaries in a female (oophorectomy) or, in the common use, to emasculation (the removal of penis and testicles), or penectomy (the removal of the penis through surgery). Penectomy can be performed either for medical reasons (e.g., in advanced prostate cancer), or for personal reasons, as in the case of a ... ...

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