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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78989 ***
+
+
+
+
+                        LITTLE BLUE BOOK NO. 648
+                      Edited by E. Haldeman-Julius
+
+                            The Facts About
+                              Rejuvenation
+
+                         Morris Fishbein, M. D.
+
+                        HALDEMAN-JULIUS COMPANY
+                             GIRARD, KANSAS
+
+
+
+
+                            Copyright, 1926
+                        Haldeman-Julius Company
+
+
+                PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+
+
+THE FACTS ABOUT REJUVENATION
+
+
+THE APOTHEOSIS OF MEDICINE
+
+The medicine of the past was a medley of superstition, faith, theory
+and tradition, lightened by gleams of accurate observation and
+logical thought. The medicine of today is a science founded on actual
+observations of the manifestations of disease in man and in animals,
+in both living and dead bodies. The medicine of an early day was based
+largely on intricate hypotheses as to the causes of disease. There
+was no systematic search in the unknown in any way comparable to the
+steady, steadfast progress of medical science resulting from research
+during the last fifty years. The medicine of a previous epoch included
+only the physician who treated the individual patient. The medicine of
+today has changed this old profession, whose only function was the care
+of the individual sick man, into a dozen professions, which include not
+only the care of the individual patient but also the study of disease,
+its prevention, the attack on disease, and the care of the public
+health.
+
+No doubt everyone can remember the family physician of some twenty or
+thirty years ago, who made his diagnosis largely by asking about the
+progress of the disease from the time the patient first noted symptoms,
+and by the use of such information as he could acquire with his unaided
+senses. It must not be thought, however, that the information which
+the physician acquires in this way is the less scientific because
+it depends merely on the use of the hand, the ear and the eye. More
+than one hundred years ago, two physicians made observations as to
+the way in which changes within the human body could be discovered by
+the use of these simple methods. Auenbrugger, in Austria, studied the
+sounds that occur when the human chest is thumped. Everyone knows that
+when you thump a cask that is half full of water the lower half will
+sound different from the empty half. Indeed, an experienced Negro can
+tell you the relative state of ripeness of a watermelon by a similar
+test. And Auenbrugger used this simple method to ascertain when the
+lung might be solidified by pneumonia, when the chest cavity might
+contain fluid or pus as a result of some infection, when the heart was
+enlarged beyond the normal limits as a result, perhaps, of overstrain
+or disease. And when all of these things were carefully written down as
+a result of thousands of observations made by physicians all over the
+world, it became possible for those educated in this method to know,
+with a fair degree of accuracy, the condition that existed within the
+patient’s chest.
+
+A little later, in Paris, a physician named Laennec, while walking to
+the hospital, noted two boys at opposite ends of a log, one listening
+and the other scratching the log with a pin. He found that the boy
+listened because he could hear the sound transmitted through the
+log. The outcome of this simple observation was the discovery of the
+stethoscope, the device which the physician employs to determine the
+sounds that go on within the human body when the organs function. On
+listening to the heart in which one of the valves has given way, one
+may hear gurgling and murmurs which are the result of physical changes
+in the heart. On listening to the lungs, one may determine whether
+the little spaces are filled with air, as they ought to be when the
+patient breathes, or whether some disease has consolidated the lung
+and made breathing impossible. These observations are just as regular
+and certain as any mathematical formula; they are as scientific as the
+observations made by an engineer; they are as definite as the diagnosis
+of a broken valve or a carbon-choked cylinder in a motor car.
+
+The textbooks in medicine of some fifty years ago were an unusual
+conglomeration of the accumulated facts of the centuries and of
+accurate observations made by careful physicians, mingled with queer
+ideas as to why things were as they seemed to be and unestablished
+rules based on the wrong interpretation of only partially understood
+phenomena. There was, for instance, certain knowledge that the bark
+of the cinchona tree, from which quinine comes, would stop the chills
+and fever of malaria. There was not, however, the fact, later shown
+by Laveran and by Rosa, that malaria is caused by an organism in the
+blood which is transmitted from one person to another by a mosquito. It
+had been observed that mercury would benefit syphilis, but no one knew
+that syphilis was caused by a spiral organism which may be transmitted
+from one person to another. It was known that certain drugs, such as
+digitalis, would slow the beat of the heart and strengthen it, but it
+was not known that it does this by action on the nerves leading to the
+heart.
+
+The time, then, was ripe for a scientist like Pasteur, and particularly
+ripe for the attitude of skepticism with which he approached the
+established beliefs of his day. The credit for the great advance of
+the last fifty years in medicine must be given to several factors:
+First, a changing conception of the way in which disease is brought
+about in the human body, due to the establishment of what some people
+still call the “germ theory.” Germs are no more a theory than is poison
+ivy. The results of the action of germs within the human body are no
+more theoretical than is the eruption that follows contact with poison
+ivy in sensitive persons. The second great factor influencing medical
+knowledge was the application to it of facts and materials derived
+from such fundamental sciences as chemistry, physics, anatomy and
+physiology. And the third important development was the invention of
+mechanical accessories to aid the human senses in studying disease,
+both within and without the human body.
+
+After Pasteur had shown that bacteria do exist and that they cause
+disease, Robert Koch, a German investigator and discoverer of the cause
+of tuberculosis, established certain laws for determining whether
+or not any single germ was actually responsible for producing any
+certain disease. It is unnecessary to mention specifically each of
+these laws; suffice to say that they involve the actual proof of the
+fact that the germ is in the body of a person dying from disease, and
+that the disease may be produced in animals by injecting them with the
+germ. It would be undesirable to mention in this article all of the
+diseases for which medical science now knows the bacterial cause; the
+list would include, however, such diseases as tuberculosis, syphilis,
+diphtheria, meningitis, typhoid fever, dysentery, pneumonia, lock-jaw,
+cholera, malaria, anthrax, scarlet fever and a vast number of less
+commonly known diseases. Hardly a year passes in which new germs are
+not isolated and in which obscure conditions are not brought to light.
+The recognition of this fact is of the greatest importance. If one
+accepts the definitely proved facts as to the relationship of bacteria
+to disease, one must at once discard all of those systems of healing
+which claim that all diseases are due to a single form of disturbance
+and are curable by a readjustment of that disturbance. There is not,
+for instance, the slightest scientific evidence that pressures on the
+nerves coming from the spine or on the blood vessels leading to the
+various organs are responsible for the many diseases from which the
+human body may suffer.
+
+Now this does not mean that medical science is in possession of the
+facts regarding all diseases. Much remains to be learned. There are
+such diseases as measles, chicken pox, mumps, German measles, epidemic
+sleeping sickness, and even common colds and influenza, for which we
+have no germ that everyone will admit is the cause of the disease. But
+medical science, with its careful, systematic methods, has learned many
+facts regarding such diseases, and the application of these facts is
+important in their proper diagnosis and healing.
+
+I mention particularly the ways in which medical science calls on
+mechanical aids in modern diagnosis. The modern physician utilizes
+mirrors and lights to observe directly the inner lining of the
+stomach, the bladder, the ear drum, the nose and the throat. You all
+know the story of the young physician who put the mirror into the
+woman’s mouth and said: “Madam, you have no idea how far we can see
+with these things.” She leaped from the chair and said, “I beg your
+pardon, doctor; I left home with a hole in the heel of my stocking.”
+By means of the X-ray, the doctor is able to observe changes in solid
+organs within the body; and through the injection of air into the
+cavities, he is able, with the aid of the X-ray, to outline organs
+heretofore not visible and to determine the condition of tissues
+that cannot be touched. The laboratories have added information to
+be gained from studies of the blood and from all of the secretions
+and excretions of the body. Studies of the blood may show the type of
+infection from which the patient suffers; may show the manner in which
+he is responding to infection; may show whether he is anemic or has
+a sufficient number of blood cells to conduct properly the chemistry
+of his body. And these matters are not beyond the comprehension of
+the ordinary human being. They may be demonstrated to any intelligent
+person; in fact, in many laboratories these simple tests are regularly
+performed by the people who have been trained only in the tests and
+not in medical knowledge. The interpretation of the test, however, is
+always a matter for a well-informed physician. Some of the cultists or
+misguided persons who believe that all diseases are brought about by
+pressures on nerves or on ligaments, by vibrations, by the influence
+of the mind, or by any other narrow, restricted mechanism of disease
+causation, should begin to realize that their theories must be
+discarded in the face of such observations as these.
+
+I pass over also the newer methods in the treatment of disease,
+involving the use of newly discovered antiseptics, of glands and gland
+substances, of vaccines and serums, and of unusual drugs. I pass over
+the beneficent effects of modern surgery and the newer anesthetics
+which have been developed and which enable the physician to perform
+surgical operations painlessly and safely, as contrasted with the
+conditions a century ago that made operating rooms bloody shambles.
+Even the brain, particularly unapproachable in a previous century, is
+now the subject of operations for the removal of tumors and the relief
+of abscesses.
+
+One by one, great infectious diseases and plagues have been brought
+under control. Fever-infested swamps and the jungle of the tropics
+have been freed of such menaces as yellow fever, malaria, African
+trypanosomiasis, and other diseases transmitted to man by insects.
+Through education in the value of a periodic physical examination and
+through the teaching of personal hygiene, intelligent persons are
+being enabled to live more and more comfortably. The death rate of
+tuberculosis has been reduced by more than one-half; typhoid fever no
+longer menaces communities which are willing to pay the price for good
+milk supply, good water and proper sewage disposal; and inspection
+of fresh and prepared foods has practically abolished the menace of
+diseases formerly transmitted in this manner. Special attention given
+to the problems of infant mortality has reduced the death rate in the
+earlier years of life and an infant coming into the world today has a
+far greater expectancy of life than did one coming into the world fifty
+years ago. The child that might then have expected to live to somewhere
+between thirty-five and thirty-nine years of age may now confidently
+look forward, under all ordinary circumstances, to reaching the age of
+fifty or fifty-five years. What hope, then, of giving that child an
+opportunity to reach its allotted three score and ten?
+
+Everyone knows from his own casual observations that a great many
+more people are living to a ripe old age nowadays than was the case
+formerly. Indeed, these observations are the exemplification of the
+statistics that have been cited as to life expectancy. The diseases
+that still remain to cut down the human being at an earlier age than
+that at which he might reasonably expect to depart this life through
+the actual wearing out of the machinery which is no longer able to
+renew itself include particularly the diseases of the heart, blood
+vessels and the kidney. Such conditions as Bright’s disease, a chronic
+inflammation of the kidney; as hypertension, exemplified through high
+blood pressure and the symptoms that accompany it; as arteriosclerosis,
+or hardening of the arteries; as angina pectoris and inflammations
+of the lining of the heart and of its valves--all such conditions
+constitute a problem which the medical profession must meet and which
+it apparently cannot meet properly without the complete education
+and cooperation of the public. Here are diseases, the prevention of
+which seems to lie in the prevention of infections of the throat in
+childhood, in the training of the child and man in the proper hygiene
+of the nose, throat and intestinal tract; in the teaching to the
+adolescent and equally to the adult of the desirability of a quiet,
+well-ordered existence with a proper amount of food, exercise and rest;
+and, not the least by any means, in letting people know that there is
+such a thing as mental hygiene, including relief from worry or mental
+strain. And then there is pneumonia, a disease likely to affect the
+older man much more severely than the young one, called, indeed, “the
+old man’s friend” because of the quick death that it produces in the
+senile; and the “captain of the men of death” because of its severely
+fatal character. The complete conquering of this infection seems
+somehow to be resting on the threshold of the future.
+
+It is the belief of several competent statisticians who have given
+careful consideration to the matter, that when these diseases are
+brought under control, the life expectancy will be moved forward at
+least another five years, but probably not a great deal more. The
+trend of modern life seems to be toward speeding up, toward greater
+mental strain and almost ceaseless activity. If, coincident with such
+speeding, medical science is still able to promise another five years
+of life expectancy to the phenomenal number of years that have thus far
+been added, it will have accomplished a marvel beyond the dreams of the
+medical scientists of fifty years ago.
+
+
+THE FACTS ABOUT REJUVENATION
+
+There is no fool like an old fool--particularly in matters of
+rejuvenation. For the senile, tottering old man, the world has had only
+the pity that it confers on a Faust, who bartered his soul for a few
+years of youthfulness; the ridicule that it darts upon a Don Quixote;
+the mild amusement with which it listens to the tale of Ponce de Leon;
+or the savagery with which it attacks the decrepit prey of physical
+lust, inspired by inflamed tissues, who slakes his appetite with the
+inveiglement of girls. Psychologists observe these as the expression
+of the law of self-preservation, the reaction of the living toward
+approaching death, the feeble call on unresponsive nerves and muscles
+for power that they cannot give.
+
+Today the public is told again and again that the secret of restoring
+youthful vigor to worn out tissues has been solved in the laboratories
+of the Austrian Steinach and of the Frenchman Voronoff. Alas! medical
+scientists, who like to be shown before they are convinced, mistrust
+the evidence. They grant readily that the senescent graybeard with the
+will-to-believe may be instilled with young ideas, but they have yet
+to admit that any surgical operation, any transplantation of glands,
+any decoction of plant, organ or mineral remedies will confer on the
+withered form the machinery to put those ideas into action. Of the
+mechanical contrivances, the glandular extracts, and the other forms
+of hocus-pocus sold with claims for their ability to rejuvenate more
+will be said later. Here the disciples of the scalpel who are reaping
+something of a harvest in the field of surgical rejuvenation will
+receive discriminating attention.
+
+Man’s search for the elixir of eternal youth was never a scientific
+one previous to the period of Brown-Sequard. Long before that famous
+French physiologist, however, scientists had been studying the nature
+and the functions of the glands. It had been shown that the ability
+to have children was co-ordinate with certain changes in the body
+of the growing child. The voice of the boy deepens, causing great
+embarrassment when a fine soprano statement suddenly changes to a basso
+growl. The first inklings of mustache and beard send him to his mirror
+for hours of painstaking scrutiny. He begins to take a more serious
+interest in the female of the species. And it was taken for granted
+that the development of these characters was the result of a special or
+internal secretion poured into the blood by the glands. In science,
+however, it is not well to take anything for granted.
+
+In 1889, the famous French physiologist thought that he had discovered
+the potent substance in extracts of the glands. One need not be a
+Freudian to realize the suggestion conveyed by the terms vim, vigor,
+virility or vitality. It was not strange, therefore, that attention
+should be turned to the peculiarly male organs in the search for
+the important substance. Indeed, the most primitive savages of
+cannibalistic nature were wont themselves to brew essences of the
+organs of the enemies whom they slew in battle, believing that the
+eating of the tissues was sufficient to confer upon them the prowess
+of their vanquished foes. Nor is it surprising that Brown-Sequard,
+having inoculated himself with extracts of glands, developed a
+sort of similitude of youthfulness. He reported that he could now
+climb a flight of steps with greater rapidity and ease than before
+his inoculation. Nevertheless, at the appointed time, the body of
+Brown-Sequard went the way of all flesh. And the skeptical scientists
+who repeated his experiments, checking them with numerous cases
+and controlling them with injections of plain water instead of the
+extracts, shook their heads in dismay. The great scientist--for
+Brown-Sequard was all of that--had yielded science to enthusiasm and
+his conclusions could not be sustained.
+
+
+THE THEORY OF STEINACH
+
+The conception on which the Steinach operation for rejuvenation is
+based is not easy to comprehend. About 1903, two French biologists
+claimed that the secretion responsible for maleness was developed
+by a certain part of the male tissues. They asserted that this
+portion developed particularly if the tubes were tied off. And
+Steinach claimed that he had confirmed their experiments and that
+the performance of this operation on old animals, particularly rats,
+resulted in rejuvenation.
+
+Now the finding of a substance or a system of rejuvenation is much
+like the finding of gold. Whether it is there or not, all of the
+unsuccessful, romantic, and adventurous experimenters rush in on the
+trail, and all of the aged and worn out capitalists come in as soon
+as convenient to take advantage of the discovery. The cry of “gold,
+gold” was taken up quickly by a number of young and enthusiastic
+investigators, who followed Steinach. Some famous actors, physicians
+and financiers who saw the waning of their power and note and of their
+ability to enjoy to the utmost the lives that had given them so much
+became subjects of the experiment. Where there are actors, authors
+and financiers, there is also always, in these modern times, good
+publicity. And where there is publicity not too careful as to the
+facts, there are soon more applicants for operations. This, in medical
+science, is known as a vicious circle.
+
+The careful experimenters who have followed the work of Steinach,
+checking all his results carefully on experimental animals, have
+demolished his claims bit by bit. Oslund of the Vanderbilt Medical
+School showed that the Steinach adherents had been deceived because
+of the type of experimental animal used. Since the theory of the
+rejuvenescence is based on an over-development of cells that does not
+actually occur, it can be taken for granted that cutting or tying of
+the tubes with the idea of producing such over-development cannot cause
+rejuvenation. And the work of Oslund has been confirmed by many other
+investigators of established standing.
+
+Moreover, the belief that the male glands alone are responsible for the
+development of male characteristics has been completely demolished. The
+complete male features of mind and body, including the external organs
+peculiar to the male, have been found in persons in whom the so-called
+male glands were absent from birth, as proved by complete postmortem
+examination. Furthermore, all of the features of the male sex have
+been found in persons in whom the male glands were absent from birth,
+but who had within the body a complete set of female glandular organs.
+There is a great deal of much more technical evidence to support the
+view that the male glands are not the only tissues concerned with
+establishing maleness or femaleness of any individual. Perhaps the best
+of it developed in experiments on hens and roosters, revealing hens
+possessing the comb and wattles and even the feathers of the rooster,
+yet living a hen’s life, laying eggs and hatching them out! But what,
+you ask, has all of this to do with Steinach’s theory of rejuvenation?
+
+The elderly gentleman who prefers blondes is hardly likely to be
+deterred by the details of technical experiments on mice, rabbits,
+chickens, or dogs. For him, therefore, one presents the facts regarding
+man. For many years the operation now called the Steinach rejuvenation
+operation was performed on old men who suffered with a disease quite
+common in old men. But in not one of the hundreds of cases in which
+the tubes were cut or tied as in the Steinach operation did any of
+the meticulous surgeons mention any restoration of youthful vigor
+or anything resembling rejuvenation. This fact has been called to
+the attention of Steinach and of all his followers again and again
+in reputable medical publications, but an explanation has never been
+offered.
+
+To the proof of the scientific laboratory investigators that the
+Steinach method is founded on a fallacy, the Steinach adherents and
+the surgeons who perform the Steinach operation reply with the sort of
+cynical shrug of the shoulders that such practical men use in answering
+laboratory evidence. They point with none too reluctant pride to their
+records of cases operated on and to the letters of testimony. Here is
+as simple a gesture as might be made by a moron, but hardly the sort of
+thing one expects from a scientist. The same testimonials--in fact much
+stronger ones--can be found for all of the nostrums and contrivances
+that have invaded this fertile field.
+
+Opposed to the enthusiastic statement of Adolph Lorenz is that of
+Professor M. Zeissl of Vienna, that the only change he noted after his
+operation was less interest in sexual matters than previously. Opposed
+to the quoted interviews of Dr. Harry Benjamin of New York concerning
+the one hundred cases on which he operated with a claimed considerable
+percentage of success are the records hidden away in medical literature
+of thousands and thousands of men on whom such operations were done
+without any noticeable response.
+
+There are, indeed, some records of senile men who put upon their
+degenerated tissues far more of stress than they could tolerate. Here
+the illusion of vigor produced an earlier death than might reasonably
+have occurred without the operation and in the absence of the illusion.
+
+The prime exponent of the Steinachian miracle in this land that so
+readily accepts overnight miracles in medicine seems to be Dr. Harry
+Benjamin. In his earlier publications one finds no mention of any
+possible mental defects associated with the surgical procedure. But
+quite recently, regardless of the fact that he is without status in
+the field of psychology and psychiatry, he begins to mutter somewhat
+vaguely concerning the importance of coincident psycho-analysis. And
+in the publicity concerning his efforts appearing within the past
+few months appears what is, for so shrewd a man, a most incautious
+admission: “The experts declare that the value of the Steinach method
+has been much reduced by ignorance and by the opposition of doctors
+who have mistaken ideas regarding the operation.” In other words, the
+patient must believe thoroughly that the operation will give him vim,
+vigor and vitality, or he doesn’t get it. For many years, physicians
+who have specialized in the diseases peculiar to men have emphasized
+again and again the great part played by the mind in controlling
+the body functions. The records of the surgeons who do the Steinach
+operations are without scientific controls. To what extent have they
+checked their work by cases on whom the operation was not done, but
+who otherwise were put through the same procedure? Obviously such
+controlling of cases would be a most elementary and simple procedure,
+but records of such control in their publications are sadly lacking.
+
+Indeed, these exponents of surgical art would seem to be providing for
+the future in their claim that the operation may be repeated with good
+effect and a second revival of powers bestowed on the waning patient.
+Here is a biological revolution that bewilders the imagination! The
+young men, handicapped in competition because of lack of experience
+and of the world’s goods, will be compelled to struggle against their
+rejuvenated fathers and grandfathers, while the latter, by repeated
+operations, maintain a permanent lead. It’s a sad, sad outlook; but
+fortunately it isn’t true.
+
+
+THE VORONOFF CONCEPTION
+
+The contention of Voronoff, like that of Steinach, has to do with
+the use of gland material for purposes of rejuvenation. He does not,
+however, depend on any change in the tissues brought about by tying
+off tubes. He actually transplants the entire glands, and since the
+human material is not easily and generally available, attempts to
+supply the deficiency with glands derived from the anthropoid apes.
+In this instance also a vast amount of experimental evidence from the
+past and from other workers of the present is available to disprove
+the contention. True, there are instances in which the glands have
+been absent from birth or lost through accident and in which the
+transplantation of such material results favorably, but the records
+again are not such as will convince any scientific reader of the
+general merit of the operation. In the first place there is not in
+any sense of the word actual prolongation of life, since none of
+those on whom the transplantings have been done seem to live beyond
+the normal period. In the second place, one reads such conclusions as
+the following: “The pessimistic attitude of the patient and constant
+brooding over his inability have marred the results of the treatment.”
+Here again the part played by the will-to-believe seems paramount.
+
+When all of the evidence is assembled and considered _en masse_,
+it becomes apparent that there is not as yet any actual proof that
+rejuvenation has been accomplished in a single individual, or any
+basis for the belief that it ever will be accomplished.
+
+
+REJUVENATION: THE MECHANICAL AND GLANDULAR METHODS
+
+Rejuvenation is, in these days of young old-men and old young-men,
+a word to conjure with. The astute purveyors of mechanical devices,
+pills, lotions and systems of physical culture sold by the mail-order
+plan have been quick to realize the wonderful “come-on” possibilities
+inherent in the word. The result has been the interminable repetition
+of the claim for renewed youth achieved through hundreds of substances
+and appliances. The post office department itself is hardly able to
+keep pace with the new developments in the field and its fraud orders
+are issued usually after the promoters have reaped a fine harvest.
+
+
+MECHANICAL REJUVENATION
+
+The senescent man or the youthful individual who finds himself
+suddenly lacking in sexual vigor is a ready prey for the exploiters
+of mechanical devices, urged because of their ability to encourage a
+physical development that seems to be lacking. The average man in this
+land of unenlightenment regarding the physical constitution has but
+slight conception of what constitutes the normal in these affairs,
+either as to physical growth or functional ability. Indeed, the more he
+meditates upon the matter, the more he is likely to be convinced that
+he himself is sadly lacking in these particulars, the psychology of
+this view being dependent upon a will to achieve rather than on actual
+knowledge. Moreover, the cleverly worded literature--and what a sad use
+of the word this is--of the salesman of various devices is calculated
+to intensify and emphasize this view. All of the advertising matter
+is a paean of praise of sexual athleticism, and a weeping and wailing
+over deficient performance, inspired to make still more mournful the
+sexually despondent male.
+
+On December 5, 1925, the post office department issued a fraud order
+against the manufacturers of a device known as the “Perfection
+Developer,” one Walter H. Hartman of Columbus, Ohio, selling under
+the firm name of “Hart & Co.” The simple device was merely a cylinder
+of glass connected with a pump and designed to induce a vacuum. The
+effects persisted only so long as the device was in actual use, and if
+it had any permanent effects whatever, they could only be for harm.
+
+Another device of the same type was sold by one M. Von Schwarts and
+William Billings of Ithaca, New York, under the name of the “Burt
+Vacuum Tube.” This firm was barred from using the mails September 1,
+1925.
+
+These devices are typical of most of the mechanical appliances offered
+by mail for men lacking sexual vigor. Obviously, they can be of no
+permanent service. Moreover, the psychology of their use is such as to
+discourage any real possibility of improvement through rest, diet and
+psychotherapy which long experience has shown are of value.
+
+
+GLANDULAR REJUVENATORS
+
+Public interest in any new medical development is at once capitalized
+by the promoters of nostrums and fallacies. It is not surprising,
+therefore, that increasing interest and knowledge of the glands of
+internal secretion should have aroused in the minds of some promoters
+the possibility of unusual and unwarranted gains.
+
+In March, 1921, the “Youth Gland Chemical Laboratories” was
+incorporated in Illinois; in February, 1922, the name of the
+corporation was changed to the “Druesen-Kraft Chemical Laboratories.”
+Later, it became known as the “Lewis Laboratories.” It was not,
+however, until March 19, 1925, that the United States Government closed
+the mails to this concern. In the meantime, it reaped a rich harvest
+from the unwary. The advertising literature of this concern was of
+a style so striking as to have merited some better use. A full-page
+announcement in the newspapers was headed, in two-inch, black type,
+“YOUR GLANDS WEAR OUT”; in the center of the page, he-men and she-women
+danced the one-step in close embrace. And here are the phrases that
+brought the replies:
+
+  --It is based entirely on the principle of Feeding Actual Gland
+  Substance Direct to the Glands, thereby renewing and rejuvenating
+  them.
+
+  --This method of giving new life to the glands is advocated and
+  endorsed by the leading students of gland therapy throughout the
+  world--including Dr. Arnold Lorand, who is generally conceded to be
+  the greatest living authority on this subject.
+
+  --The actual Method of Treatment used by us is the result of
+  exhaustive experiments covering several thousand cases, during the
+  past two years.
+
+  --The “Lewis” Treatment Is Practically Never Failing.
+
+  --If You Could Prevent the Wear and Tear on Your Glands Caused by
+  Sickness, Age, Disease, etc., You Would Look and Feel as Young at 70
+  as at 25. Science However Has Solved the Secrets of the Glands and
+  Now for the First Time Shows You the True Way to KEEP or REGAIN Your
+  Vigor by Feeding and Replenishing the Most Important Glands!
+
+  --Build Up Your Glands and You Build Up Your Strength and Endurance.
+
+The evidence is clear that the firm did exceedingly well from a
+financial point of view. The original price of the treatment was
+$10.00, which, on occasion, could be reduced to $7.50, and, if the
+victim still failed to succumb, to a special offer of $2.95. The court
+records in the case showed that the firm had spent at least $300,000.00
+in advertising, and that it had a gross annual income of between
+$250,000.00 and $300,000.00. Nevertheless, scientific evidence has
+shown that extracts or other preparations of the sex glands are without
+power when taken by mouth. They not only fail to produce rejuvenation
+of the entire body, but even to stimulate to any extent the particular
+portions of the body in which the applicant for rejuvenation seems to
+be especially interested.
+
+Another concern, with headquarters in Denver, issued a booklet entitled
+“The Secret of Staying Young.” Here were the testimonials of elderly
+men, 82, 83 and 84 years of age, who announced that they had lasting
+benefits from the treatments offered. These testimonials are just as
+vociferous and emphatic as those of aspirants for youth operated on by
+the disciples of Steinach. The treatments consisted of nothing more
+than dried animal glands, taken by mouth, which, as has been said,
+could not possibly have the effects claimed for them. The concern
+exploiting these desiccated glands, the “Vital-O-Gland Company,” not
+content with depending on the mental responses of those who took
+its preparations by mouth, sold at the same time the usual vacuum
+developer, a glass tube attached to a bicycle pump. When the Government
+investigated this concern, it found twenty-two girls and five men
+occupied in sending out the salacious literature. The evidence revealed
+that the gross income of the concern for 1923 was $176,406.82.
+Rejuvenation pays!
+
+The Vital-O-Gland Company and the Lewis Laboratories have been barred
+by the Government from the use of mails, but there still remain many
+concerns offering, both to physicians and to the public, glandular
+preparations for rejuvenation or for sexual stimulation. There will
+always be senescent, somewhat lewd and sad old men to waste the funds
+of their declining years on such powerless pills. The memories of youth
+become more and more resplendent with the passing years.
+
+The Glandine Laboratories of Chicago and Los Angeles issues a circular
+with the question, “Must We Grow Old?” and with the answer, “Science
+Says, No.” The treatments consist of extracts of the sex glands to
+be taken by mouth. The Glandex Company of New York advertised in
+the public press a combination of gland extracts with iron. The
+International Research Laboratories of Chicago advertised “Baker’s
+Glandol,” with a salacious pamphlet emphasizing the rejuvenation of
+man, and with such headings as “The Most Interesting Thing Is Love.
+Don’t Waste Life. Luck from Boldness and Suppressed Desires.” Where is
+the man who could resist the plea?
+
+The Puritan Laboratories of Nashville, Tennessee, issues “Glandtone,”
+offered with the claim that it will restore youthful vigor to those
+passing with age. The Walton Chemical Company of Chicago emphasizes
+the glands and says that a combination of the sex glands, the thyroid,
+prostate, pituitary and adrenal, hermetically sealed, will defer
+old age and renew vitality. What of the impudence and psychological
+cleverness of its warning:
+
+
+WARNING!
+
+  The country is being flooded with literature from so-called
+  “Laboratories,” offering to restore Sex STRENGTH in the forms of
+  unsealed “Gland Tablets” or “Liquids.”
+
+  Such preparations may contain some gland substance, but unless the
+  ingredients are SEALED to preserve their strength, the potency may be
+  entirely gone in a few days.
+
+  The Walton Treatment INSURES the STRENGTH of the INGREDIENTS and
+  thousands have found this method SUCCESSFUL even after years and
+  years of previous failure with other methods of treatment.
+
+  In fact, fully three out of four who write of their remarkable
+  results with this new method, say they had taken many other
+  Treatments or methods without relief.
+
+Bear in mind that there is not an iota of evidence to show that any
+preparation of male sex glands, singly or in combination, has ever
+been shown to have the slightest effect on the human body when given
+by mouth. It was the hope and the belief of Brown-Sequard that he had
+found such a substance. Even he thought that the taking of sex glands
+brought about in him a sort of rejuvenation. Yet in the more than fifty
+years since his passing, and since his claims were disproved, the
+public has not learned the truth.
+
+
+RADIUM AND LIGHT
+
+With the coming of the newer discoveries in medicine as to the effects
+on the human body of radium, the X-ray and ultra violet light, the
+agile-minded exploiters of the public’s interest in keeping young were
+again quick to respond with the preparation and sale of such apparatus
+and material for purposes of rejuvenation. Of course, rejuvenation is
+not a physical state that can be easily determined accurately. The old
+man with declining powers is ready to welcome the slightest sign of
+increasing ability in physical work or in sexual activity. He forgets
+to reason that the rest and the mental stimulation associated with
+any new method of treatment are likely to bring about the illusion of
+strength.
+
+The manufacturer of a cabinet lined with incandescent lamps, for
+example, is not content to claim for it the simple uses of a sweat
+bath, or of heat produced by incandescent lamps. Ah! No! This simple
+cabinet becomes as by the wave of a magician’s want, an “Inductive
+Metabolizing Method.” And the manufacturer says:
+
+  The ---- Inductive Metabolizing method gives to the world one of the
+  greatest, if not the greatest, means of rejuvenation of the human
+  organism known to medicine, but the part that is most interesting
+  about this modality is that of its synergetic action with all the
+  recognized methods of rejuvenation now in use--such as gland therapy,
+  radioactive drinking water, baths, etc., as the results obtained by
+  their use, when accompanied by the Inductive Metabolizing treatments,
+  are increased tenfold.
+
+One can almost picture him rubbing his hands in glee as he murmurs:
+“Rejuvenation: That’s the word that gets ’em!”
+
+The makers of apparatus containing radium or the blenders of waters
+which have been submitted to the rays of this wondrous element urge
+also its potency for rejuvenation. They point knowingly to the
+radioactive springs of Germany and Switzerland and cite the records of
+the old men who have visited those springs and returned home younger in
+body, if not in years. But they too neglect the effect of weeks of rest
+and freedom from care, of good diet and salubrious surroundings, and
+possibly--in fact, probably--of enforced inactivity for those portions
+of the anatomy whose physical functioning persists in remaining the
+center of interest when rejuvenation is discussed.
+
+
+“THE NEW SCIENCE OF RADIENDOCRINOLOGY”
+
+If radiation rejuvenates--although of course it doesn’t--and if
+glands rejuvenate--and it has been shown that they do not--then, say
+the manufacturers of the Radiendocrinator, the combination will get
+the result. Merely ray the glands with the Radiendocrinator--price
+$150.00--and you are there! The booklets are a hodgepodge of
+exaggerations, fallacies, and confusions regarding chemistry, physics,
+biology, glands, radium, and whatnot. But the convincing document is
+a blue-colored bonded guarantee of satisfaction or money refunded.
+Couched in language that seems to make the chance of financial loss
+to the unwary impossible, the guarantee is nevertheless a snare and a
+delusion. Launched originally by Dr. Herman H. Rubin, New York, as a
+device to be worn at night over the glands and selling at $1,000.00,
+the apparatus is now a reflector on a stand and can be purchased for
+$150.00 But for pure romance the literature is at least ten times as
+fanciful.
+
+
+THE HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
+
+Even the Greek philosophers murmured that physical powers in matters
+of sex did not always parallel brain capacity. Strange that the sex
+instinct should be so deeply rooted and so prominent in life that
+two thousand years of experience has failed to convince men of the
+truthfulness of that statement.
+
+Modern science has shown that the early detection of signs of disease
+by physical examination, and the establishment of a proper regime of
+life, including adequate rest, diet, exercise, simple personal hygiene,
+and freedom from worry will greatly extend the life of the average
+man. He may quite reasonably hope to live to seventy years and if he
+is at all careful considerably beyond that age. It behooves him then
+to grow old gracefully, remembering that much of the greatest work of
+this world done in art, letters, invention, finance and statesmanship
+has been done by men well beyond sixty years of age. Their minds were
+perhaps little given to the purely pleasurable functions of the bodies
+which constituted the abodes of their restless spirits.
+
+
+THE ANTIVIVISECTIONIST AND ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION
+
+George Jean Nathan, in that immortal document _Pistols for Two_ in
+which he and Monsieur Mencken, using the cognomen Maj. Owen Hatteras,
+gave an unsuspecting world an insight into their personal characters
+and characteristics, tells us which of his aphorisms delights him most.
+Of all the soul-searching mots perpetrated by this astute coiner of
+phrases, the one he selected is likewise the one that gives me most
+joy. “An antivivisectionist,” said Dr. Nathan, “is a woman who strains
+at a guinea pig and swallows a baby.” There it is in a nutshell! A
+Freudian might claim that the term “nutshell” was prominent in my mind
+because I was discussing the antivivisectionist.
+
+At a period when the whole world begins to turn to science as the
+real goal of mankind; when intelligent human beings begin to discard
+pseudo-sentiment for fact, the followers of what is essentially merely
+an illogical, fanatical cult continue to oppose progress if it is to
+involve in any way what they conceive to be abuse of the lower animals
+for purposes of study. This opposition seems to rest invariably
+on a lack of actual knowledge of what animal experimentation has
+accomplished for mankind, of what it has contributed to the life and
+comfort of the animal, of the extent to which the animal may suffer
+in the cause of experimentation, and of the very rules which the
+scientists themselves have elaborated to safeguard their work with
+animals.
+
+It is impossible in the scope of a brief article even to enumerate all
+that has been learned by animal experimentation. Without the aid of
+this method Pasteur could not have founded the science of bacteriology;
+such diseases as hydrophobia, tuberculosis, yellow fever, plague,
+scarlet fever, diphtheria and diabetes would not have passed under
+the control of scientific medicine but would have continued to take
+their immense toll of life and to cause immeasurable economic loss
+through illness. Indeed, to calculate the sums saved and earned through
+preventing illness, through opening up countries constantly menaced
+by disease, through the building of the Panama Canal, and through the
+saving of workers in industry, would produce a figure so vast as to be
+almost incredible.
+
+Anyone who has seen a child, succumbing to the gradual encroachment
+of the diphtheric membrane in its throat, suddenly respond to the
+marvelous effects of diphtheria antitoxin will oppose to the utmost
+any attempt to deprive that child of the remedy. In preparing
+antitoxin the horse is required for the production of the serum and
+the guinea pig for standardization. I have seen the horses used for
+such service. Their paths are spread in pleasant places. They toil
+not at all, they are kept clean, they frolic in the open air except
+when the weather may be inclement. They are well fed and given the
+best of attention. I have seen the serum withdrawn and seen the horse
+make no more visible sign of protest than is made by the average man
+when he sticks his finger on a pin in the back of his wife’s dress. I
+have seen guinea pigs by the thousands utilized for this work. If I
+am any judge of guinea pig emotions they do not suffer unduly in the
+process. I have never seen a guinea pig suffer as much as a hysterical
+antivivisectionist suffers at a dog and pony show or a circus.
+
+Before the discovery of the serum for epidemic meningitis from fifty
+to seventy-five percent of all who were afflicted died. When the serum
+is given the mortality is below twenty-five percent of those affected,
+and this says nothing of the saving in illness and in permanently
+disabling after effects. In the investigation which led to this
+discovery rabbits, guinea pigs, horses and monkeys were employed. In
+a war, nations sacrifice the lives of hundreds of thousands of their
+finest young men; the people are told that the sacrifice is made so
+that women and children may have a safe place in which to live. Shall
+the lives of rabbits and guinea pigs be weighed against the lives of
+the same children threatened by far greater dangers than those of war:
+the dangers of infectious disease? Puerperal infection which killed the
+woman in childbirth was controlled through animal experimentation. What
+about saving women from that menace?
+
+It is not alone the so-called biological remedies such as antitoxins,
+vaccines and serums that are dependent on animal experimentation. Most
+of the potent drug remedies used today for the alleviation and cure of
+disease must be tested and standardized by the use of animals. Most
+of our important synthetic drugs were first evolved only by the use
+of animals. The anesthetics such as ether, chloroform, ethylene and
+nitrous oxide gas have the same effects on animals that they have on
+man. Was it not right that they should be tested first on animals? Such
+drugs as digitalis, which makes the lives of many persons suffering
+from heart disease endurable, have to be standardized by animal tests.
+Shall the poisonous doses of potent drugs be learned by tests made on
+the white rat or the guinea pig or on man; or worse still, shall we
+permit men to die or suffer mutilation to spare the feelings of the
+white mouse? Isn’t it after all a question of sparing the hyperesthetic
+sensibilities of some idle woman rather than the duller sensibilities
+of some lower animal?
+
+One by one the infectious diseases that attack man are being brought
+under control. There still remain those incurable diseases such as
+cancer, those conditions such as Bright’s disease, high blood pressure,
+heart disease and diabetes, which may be alleviated but have not been
+completely conquered. Shall the methods that have brought success in
+the control of some diseases be discarded at the whim of misguided
+and unreasoning followers of this cult opposed to human progress? Of
+course, animal experimentation never will be discarded. After all, the
+progress of scientific medicine is a powerful movement sweeping on and
+on with ever increasing impetus.
+
+
+ANIMAL EXPERIMENTATION BENEFITS THE ANIMAL
+
+Strangely enough the lower animals have benefited as much as has man
+himself through the progress made by animal experimentation. Hog
+cholera serum, the tuberculin test for cattle, the control of hoof and
+mouth disease, puerperal sepsis in cattle, hydrophobia, fowl plague,
+and the many worm diseases that afflict animals depend for their
+control on the same type of experimentation that yielded results for
+the diseases of man.
+
+There is another side of the question that has its humorous aspects. It
+is necessary to kill hundreds of thousands of stray dogs and cats in
+our large cities to keep them from overrunning the human inhabitants.
+It has been estimated that a single pair of rats, if permitted to
+breed unchecked, might produce within three years a number of progeny
+running into eighteen or twenty-four figures. Everyone knows about the
+prolificity of guinea pigs and rabbits which multiply inordinately.
+Who shall say that these uses of science are not as kind a fate, as
+satisfactory an existence, as is the hunting down of the surplus by
+the hunter, the trapper, the poisoner, or the poundmaster? As we have
+shown, the horse used for the production of serum has a far happier
+life than the drawer of burdens in the ownership of some unthinking
+careless human being.
+
+
+RULES CONTROLLING SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENTATION
+
+Medical scientists have not waited for government or other supervision
+to establish control over animal experimentation that will make it
+as nearly perfect as possible in preventing unnecessary pain and in
+providing animals with the best of care. A committee of the American
+Medical Association regularly functions for no other purpose. Under the
+control of this committee each laboratory binds itself to observe the
+rules laid down and to post those rules regularly in each department.
+The rules require that animals be held at least as long as they are
+held at the city pound; that they receive every consideration for their
+bodily comfort; that no operations be made, except with the sanction
+of the director of the laboratory; that animals be anesthetized and
+rendered incapable of receiving pain in all operations, except in
+those in which anesthesia would defeat the object of the experiment,
+and finally that animals be killed painlessly at the conclusion of the
+experiment. These rules are most rigidly enforced and laboratories
+throughout the country are open to inspection by anyone interested from
+a scientific point of view, or from the point of view of control of
+this work.
+
+If it be true, as has been said again and again, that science is
+the hope of the future for the progress of humanity, those who
+obstruct this progress by needless and unwarranted follies should be
+considered as subjects for mental investigation, or else as misguided
+sentimentalists whom one condones, but whom one does not take too
+seriously.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+- Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).
+
+- Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.
+
+- Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice.
+
+- Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following changes:
+
+  Page 1: “D. Haldeman-Julius” to “E. Haldeman-Julius”
+  Page 5: “such as digitalis, woud” to “such as digitalis, would”
+  Page 10: “Such conditions as Brights” to “Such conditions as Bright’s”
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78989 ***