THE MALE HORMONE 



effects of the androgenic hormones, as C. R. Moore" neatly 

 puts it, are measured by the difference between a castrated 

 and a normal man. These substances substitute completely, in 

 animal experiments, for the normal internal secretion of the 

 testis. They counteract castrate atrophy of the seminal 

 vesicles and prostate gland ; when given to immature animals 

 they stimulate precocious growth of the accessory sex organs, 

 and they induce sex activity and mating in castrated and 

 immature males. A castrated male, skillfully treated with 

 potent hormones, will resemble a normal animal of his species 

 in all respects except that he will be infertile because he is 

 producing no germ cells. 



These effects have been tested quite thoroughly in an experi- 

 mental way upon human patients who lack the testis hormone. 

 In these men and boys, as in laboratory animals, the injected 

 hormones bring out all the known responses which the bodily 

 tissues normally make to the natural hormones of the testis. 

 It should be recalled here that the symptoms of deprivation 

 of testis hormone may be due to defects in either one of two 

 glands. The testes may themselves be missing or deficient, or 

 the pituitary gland may be furnishing an inadequate supply 

 of gonadotropic hormone (see Chapter VI). In the latter 

 case the testis will not be functional and the patient will show 

 symptoms of testis hormone deficiency exactly as if the testis 

 itself were the seat of the difficulty. At some time in the future, 

 when endocrine treatment has reached a higher state of per- 

 fection, it may become possible to treat the pituitary cases 

 with pituitary hormones, reserving the androgenic hormones 

 for cases of deficiency of the testis itself. At present, however, 

 the distinction is more or less academic. In either case the 

 physician finds himself confronted with signs of male hormone 

 deficiency, and the question of immediate importance is how 



8C. R. Moore, "Physiology of the Testis," in Glandular Phytiology 

 and Therapy , 2d ed., Chicago, 1942. 



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