Byzantine ideas about eunuchs

typicalacademic:

tiny brain: the capacity to enjoy sex is stored in the balls

In general, medieval authors concluded that if a child were made a eunuch
before his fourteenth year he would not be able to experience sexual pleasure,
though he might engage in passive sexual behavior. Those castrated later in life,
however, might be able to experience sexual pleasure though they could not procreate.
“Eunuchs do not experience sexual desire because both passages for the seed are destroyed. […] Boys do not have sexual desire for the following reason: their veins are narrow and full [or engorged] and cannot ejaculate the seed, and irritation [or stimulation] similarly does not happen.”

glowing brain: heat is stored in the balls

Aristotle believed that vital heat was produced by the heart, but he also argued that it was retained by the sperm and stored in the sexual organs. Stored sperm then acted as a reservoir and source of heat for the male body, a source that should never be wasted. […] In the course of explaining the importance of heat and cold, he tells us that during sexual intercourse blood and its attendant warmth is withdrawn from the male brain and concentrated in the genital region. As a result the brain, which tends to be cool in any case, is chilled. The long-term result of this chilling of the brain and scalp is that the hair follicles of the scalp die, resulting in baldness. Children and eunuchs do not have intercourse, and as a result they have full heads of hair.

galaxy brain: wisdom teeth are stored in the balls

Theophilos Protospatharios, an author of Byzantine medical texts of uncertain date, explains that eunuchs, if castrated before fourteen years of age, are, like women, lacking in wisdom teeth. This is an old idea, dating from the writings of Aristotle and Pliny.