Gockelius speaks of self-castration in a ruptured man, and Golding, Guyon, Louis, Laugier, the Ephemerides, Alix, Marstral, and others, record instances of self-castration.

In his Essays Montaigne mentions an instance of complete castration performed by the individual himself.
Thiersch mentions a case of a man who circumcised himself when eighteen.

He married in 1870, and upon being told that he was a father he slit up the hypogastrium from the symphysis pubis to the umbilicus, so that the omentum protruded; he said his object was to obtain a view of the interior.

Although the knife was dirty and blunt, the wound healed after the removal of the extruding omentum.

A year later he laid open one side of the scrotum.