Knowledge about the existence of hormones was relatively new in the early 1900’s, but scientists were extremely interested in these self-manufactured chemicals that arouse or depress us, that make us grow or sleep or have sex, etc etc etc . . . This early stage of endrocronology was a sort of Wild West, and earnest scientists far too frequently let their exuberance drive their pronouncements. Enter the popularity of “organotherapy,” which was the idea that various organs could be ground up and consumed to help patients suffering from a bevy of maladies.
Thus, the company G.W. Carnrick produced testicle extracts “to cure epilepsy, weakness, cholera, tuberculosis, and asthma,” and adrenaline to fix “hemorrhoids, vomiting, and seasickness,” the pituitary glands for “headaches and constipation.” And wait — it gets better. Sergey Voronoff, a highly respected French surgeon, transplanted the testicles of apes into men suffering from a lack of virility. And throughout the 1920’s through the 1930’s, thousands of Americans underwent vasectomies not for birth control, but because a notable psychologist called Eugen Steinach preached that the operation would act as a kind of rejuvenation and give more sex drive, higher energy levels, and more productivity.
The last image is a book published in 2010, which I have not read — It’s just in this post because it illustrates the continuation of the idea of organotherapy.
Source(s): Quote and information taken right out of _Aroused: the History of Hormones and How They Control Just about Everything_, by Randi Hutter Epstein (W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 2018), p. 61 (The quote), and pp. 72-74.
