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-Sequard 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 a dog. 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-Sequard'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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