^y6 Brown-Sequard 



hypothyroidism, and the removal of the pancreas produced diabetes mellitus. 

 About this time Brown-Sequard began his own work on the internal secretions 

 of the testes, work which was to cause such a furor in the scientific world. 



In one of his early publications he points out that the sexual glands have 

 three important roles: one, that of generation; another, their effect upon the 

 nervous centers "which give to man and to woman their physical, moral and 

 intellectual characteristics"; and thirdly, a special tonic action upon the spinal 

 cord and the brain. He expresses, on numerous occasions, his conviction that 

 the weakness of old men depends, in part, on the diminution of the activity 

 of the sperm glands. Having boldly advanced his theories, Brown-Sequard 

 immediately plunged into the fray to prove the correctness of his conceptions. 

 Some of his case reports are remarkable in the extreme. He frequently saw 

 examples of the striking results obtained from injection of testicular extract 

 or even of semen itself. 



"Young man, tubercular leprosy. After the first injection he noticed a great 

 increase in strength. He walked many miles on foot, in spite of the heat of 

 summer (in the tropics). He could do his work as a worker because, he declared, 

 of these injections. The hair returned in parts where it had long since fallen." 



"Young man, age 30, confined to his bed with nodular rheumatism, obliged 

 to rest on his back for several months, ankylosed. After two or three injections 

 he turned himself in his bed and put himself at will on one or the other side. 

 He could bend his right leg up until the middle of the sole of his foot was flat 

 on the bed." 



"A young doctor in Paris injected, with rapid and complete success, his own 

 sperm under the skin of his wife. She had been in bed in a state of extreme 

 weakness caused by hemorrhage. Her strength returned very rapidly. On four 

 occasions at different times the same weakness, due to the same cause, was re- 

 lieved by dynamogenic action of sperm injected under the skin." 



A skeptical world refused to be impressed. Dr. Brown-Sequard was deterred, 

 however, neither by criticism, nor abuse, nor by the sarcastic description of 

 the testicular extract, as "Brown-Sequard's Elixir." He continued his work 

 and spent more than 10,000 francs distributing gratis samples of his testicular 

 extract for clinical use. 



Reviewing this period of Brown-Sequard's activity, we are impressed by his 

 lack of discrimination in assaying the value of the clinical trials. However 

 crude and uncontrolled as much of his work was, we realize that Brown- 

 Sequard's premise that the sexual glands had other functions than those of 

 generation stamps him as possessed of a very keen and observant mind. During 

 this period Brown-Sequard also experimented with extracts of other organs. 

 He employed an extract of the thyroid gland in myxedema with great success, 

 recorded prolongation of life in adrenalectomized animals following injections 

 of a suprarenal extract, and described experiments with aqueous extracts of 

 the pancreas. He also studied the physiological effects of extracts of the thymus, 

 spleen, liver, and kidneys, and advanced the opinion that extracts of the 



