Читать книгу The Slim Book of Health Pearls: Hormones, Nerves, and Stress - Sheldon Cohen M.D. FACP - Страница 6

Since in the early 1900’s, the information about the immune system and rejection phenomenon of the human body were not yet known, an interesting industry grew up around the concept that all the endocrine glands worked autonomously. Championed by a medical doctor, “monkey glands” (code for testicle slices) were transplanted into the scrotum of patients. Since the male ego has always sought the secret of increasing health and virility, they flocked to the plush Paris clinic where they could be guaranteed continuous good health and/or the virile sex life they enjoyed as young men. The men, believe it or not, had good results…probably a manifestation of the placebo effect since the transplanted organs were instantly rejected, but explained away as “resorbed into the body.”

In addition to the patients, the doctor benefitted by surrounding himself with luxury on the entire first floor of an expensive Paris hotel including chefs, chauffeurs, secretaries, valets and several mistresses.

This lasted considerable time while attracting the very wealthy including business tycoons, captains of industry, kings, princes, lords, prime ministers, plus anyone with the financial wherewithal to afford such luxuries.

In time, however, the doctor was vilified and has passed into a medical footnote of history, only to be resurrected in the more modern era by the information that testicular cells are relatively immune to the rejection phenomenon (?) However, the reader can rest assured that monkey gland transplantation will never return especially since some accuse the doctor of being responsible for transplanting the aids virus from monkeys to man.

So now with that footnote to medical history behind us, it’s time to get back to the endocrine glands. That brings us to the next advance: the discovery of the function of the pituitary gland, an important development in the medical profession’s understanding of endocrine function.