EUNUCHS 393 



Eunuchs of 200 cm. in height are observed often. The tallness first sets in at 

 the time of puberty. The closure of the epiphyses is delayed. Many 

 epiphysial junctures may remain open until a high age. The ossification of 

 the cranial sutures is also delayed. Signs of the frontal, cranial, sagittal, and 

 lumboid sutures are retained for a long time. Therewith the skeleton shows 

 especial characteristics; the head is small, the tabular part of the occipital 

 bone is. according to Gall, flattened. The spinal column is especially short, 

 the extremities are lengthened, especially in their distal parts, thus causing a 

 certain preponderance of the lower length over the upper length and a rela- 

 tively large span width. Often there is genu valgum. The breadth of the 

 shoulders is diminished, the pelvis shows a mid-form between masculine and 

 feminine type, and remains infantile. In the same cases the sella turcica is 

 remarkably large. I have already remarked I cannot infer from this an 

 increase in function of the hypophysis. In the tall eunuchoids the sella 

 turcica, as we shall see later, is not enlarged, but rather smaller. The larynx 

 remains small, does not ossify, shows childish dimensions, in which the 

 laminae thyroidiae encroach upon each other at a wide angle and the promi- 

 nentia laryngea is indistinct; the voice does not change, and the childish 

 soprano is retained. The bones, especially the long tubular bones remain 

 delicate, and the sites of the muscular insertions are only very feebly developed. 

 The tonus of the muscles is slight, the phenomena of movement should take 

 place more slowly. The muscles 'are permeated with fat. The metabolism 

 of the muscles must become essentially altered through the castration, for on 

 castration the meat of male animals takes on the characteristic odor, an 

 experience that is extensively made use of by breeders. 



The skin is strikingly delicate and pale and in older castrates shows the 

 fawn-yellow coloration and wrinkling. It is very poor in pigment. The 

 distribution of fat is very characteristic, fully corresponding to that which will 

 be described under dystrophia adiposo-genitalis. Hence there are found 

 pads of fat in the hypogastric region, and on the mons Veneris, the latter of 

 which is bounded above by a horizontal fold; also on the nates, on the hips 

 and thighs, on the mammary glands and laterally on the upper eyelids which 

 may hang down like bags. In many cases there occurs pronounced adiposity. 

 Tandler and Grosz distinguish between a tall and a fat eunuch type, al- 

 though in the first the characteristic distribution of fat is always indicated. 

 The muscle meat is, as in the castrated animals, permeated with fat. The 

 tonus of the musculature is slight. 



Finally the secondary sexual characters are deficient. While the hair of 

 the head is dense, such individuals are beardless, and show only lanugo hairs 

 on the face, especially on the chin and the upper lip; in later life, individual 

 bristly hairs may develop, similar to those that grow in old women, on the 

 lateral parts of the upper lips. . The trunk remains completely hairless and 

 the axillary hairs are absent or are sparse. The pubic hairs are absent, or 



