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Title: The facts about rejuvenation
Author: Morris Fishbein
Editor: E. Haldeman-Julius
Release date: July 1, 2026 [eBook #78989]
Language: English
Original publication: Girard: Haldeman-Julius Company, 1926
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78989
Credits: Tim Miller, Sam Lamb and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FACTS ABOUT REJUVENATION ***
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”
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