GREGORY PINCUS 



animals by hormonal means may one day be attained. Cer- 

 tainly hormone therapy in veterinary medicine will be increas- 

 ingly practised. Then there is anthropology. The measure- 

 ment of physical and emotional differences between the so-called 

 races of men has disclosed differences that may have rather 

 profound endocrine bases. What about endocrine mechanisms 

 in the fat metabolism of the Eskimo, pituitary and androgen 

 function in the Pigmy, adrenal function in ceremonial rites? 

 Are there endocrine bases to personality and behavioral tribal 

 characteristics? 



I have thus far limited this discourse to known animal hor- 

 mones. I should like to remark finally and briefly on prospects 

 of discovery. Mammalian endocrinology has been the most 

 intensively exploited field, particularly because of medical im- 

 plications. At this writing the probability of the discovery of 

 many new mammalian hormones appears limited. I am not 

 unmindful of the need for further exploration of pituitary factors 

 (adipokinin may be established as the latest) and of gastro- 

 intestinal tract hormones and of the parathyroid mystery and of 

 prospects of new neurohumors. But I do believe that our 

 knowledge of significant hormones in the lower vertebrates and 

 invertebrates is at best elementary. A few faithful and ex- 

 traodinarily able investigators have discovered fascinating 

 hormonal mechanisms in insects and Crustacea, with the result 

 that the problems that they have uncovered can keep many 

 people busy for a long time. Comparative endocrinology as a 

 science is not even an infant, it is a conceptus. If you would like 

 to be the discoverer of a new animal hormone, apply your bio- 

 chemistry to any one of innumerable species of nonmammalian 

 forms. There lies the untouched treasure. 



I hope it is evident that the trajectory of the curve de- 

 scribing hormone research has not yet reached its inflection 

 point. Certainly evident to the scientific pioneer are the pros- 

 pects of wide-open spaces, of intriguing new phenomena, and of 

 mysterious natural events. There is no stage in individual de- 

 velopment from conception to senility which is exempt from 



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