It soon wastes, and becomes as functionless as though it were removed.
This operation can be performed in a Surgery with the aid of a little Cocaine, and the patient may walk to his home, sterilized for the rest of his natural life, after the complete loss of any accumulated fluid.
Of these two operations for the sterilization of men, vasectomy is preferable.

The major operation for the purpose of inducing artificial sterility should never for a moment be considered.
But vasectomy, though surgically simple, and a less violation of sentiment than castration, cannot be justified except in exceptional cases.
Neither of these operations makes the subjects of them altogether or at once impotent, certainly not for years.

It sterilizes and partly unsexes them and in the end completely so.
But the physical and mental changes that follow the operation in the young adolescent are grave and serious, and a violent outrage upon the man's nature and sentiment.
Society can hope for nothing but evil from the man she forcibly unsexes; but if he must be kept in durance vile for the whole of his life there is little need for such an operation.
The criminal cases bad enough to justify this grave and extreme measure should be incarcerated for life.
The cases, it has been thought, that fully justify this operation are those guilty of repeated criminal assaults.
Such a claim arises out of insufficient knowledge of the physiology of sex, and the pathology of crime.

Emasculation would have little influence in preventing a recurrence of this crime, for the operation does not render its subjects immediately impotent, nor does it change their sexual nature any more than it beautifies their character.
The instinct remains, and the power to gratify it remains at least for some years.

With the less knowledge of surgery of earlier times, a social condition in which such a practice might be rationally considered, is conceivable, but with the present state of our profession, such measures would be unthinkable..