The Doctor Who Owned His Patient and the Limbs of Freedom

Our Rabbis taught: if his master was a physician, and the slave said to him, "paint my eye [with salve]," and he blinded it, or "scrape my tooth," and he knocked it out, [the master] made sport of his lord and [the slave] goes free. Rabban Shimon ben Gamliel says: [the verse says] "and ruins it," [meaning he goes free only] when he intends to ruin it. And the Rabbis, what do they do with this "and ruins it"? They need it for what was taught: Rabbi Elazar says, if he reached his hand into the belly of his maidservant and blinded the fetus within her, he is exempt, for Scripture says "and ruins it," [meaning] only when he intends to ruin it. And the other [authority] does not expound "and he ruined, and ruins it." Rav Sheshet said: if his eye was already blind and he gouged it out, the slave goes free through it. What is the reason? He is now missing a limb. And the Tanna [of a baraita] also taught [a parallel principle]: completeness and maleness apply to a beast [for sacrifice] but completeness and maleness do not apply to birds. One might think that even if its wing dried up, its leg was severed, or its eye was gouged [the bird is still valid]; Scripture teaches "from the bird" and not all of the bird. Our Rabbis taught: there are twenty-four extremities in a person; all of them do not convey impurity by reason of live flesh [in a leprous sign]. And these are they: the tips of the fingers of the hands and feet, the tips of the ears, the tip of the nose, the tip of the membrum, and the tips of the breasts in a woman. Rabbi Yehudah says: in a man as well. And it was taught concerning this: in all of these the slave goes free. Ben Azzai says: even the tongue. Rabbi [Yehudah HaNasi] says: even castration. Castration of what? If we say severing of the membrum, that is the same as the body [already listed]. Rather, [the crushing of] the testicles.