XXIII 
STERILITY, SEX STIMULATION AND THE 
ENDOCRINES 
By THOMAS W. EDGAR, M.D., New York City 
In presenting this paper to the profession I feel that 
it is my duty to preface what follows by a few words in 
reference to the subject, in order that conditions re- 
garding the contained facts be realized. Almost thirty 
years ago, Brown-Séquard published in the Archives de 
Physiologie a treatise dealing with his research on tes- 
ticular organotherapy. He went so far as to offer him- 
self as a medium, and had injected into his body a prep- 
aration prepared from the testes of adog. He reported 
that almost instantaneously he was endowed with re- 
newed vigor and virility: in his own words, “‘Consider- 
able laboratory work produced hardly any fatigue, and 
to the astonishment of my two assistants I was able 
to work for several hours in a standing position.” 
Unfortunately, the charlatans of Paris commercial- 
ized this fact by promptly seizing Brown-Séquard’s 
announcement; as a result the real significance of the 
facts established by this master was drowned by the 
acts of these unethical practitioners to mulct their sus- 
ceptible patients of more money. Thus his work and its 
result fell into disrepute, and up to the present this bad 
repute has stayed with organotherapy, whether it be 
testicular, or what not. Nevertheless, to those of us 
who have become interested in endocrinology, the facts 
presented in rough form in 1888 have formed a basis 
on which to work miracles in spite of the ever unfor- 
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