I was introduced to this bit of historical weirdness n the Dorothy Sayers novel
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
In the book one of the characters is a physician is engaged in research into "ductless glands", the endocrine system and as one of Womsey's contacts says:
Quote:
"...would you care to come along to a ‘do’ at the Rushworths’ Wednesday Week? It will be very deadly, because Naomi Rushworth’s new young man is going to read a paper on ductless glands which nobody knows anything about. However, it appears that ductless glands will be ‘news’ in next to no time—ever so much more up-to-date than vitamins—so the Rushworths are all over glands—in the social sense, I mean.”
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Other works by Sayers refer to various "monkey gland" treatments, for improved virility as well as to cure "criminal tendencies" in preference to hanging.
Which brings me back to the title of this piece: Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff, the Monkey Gland Man. Voronoff was (as his name suggests) a Russian who worked principally in France and became a citizen in 1895
Which is early enough for him to become involved with Sherlock Holmes. Holmes did encounter a case of monkey gland treatment (The Adventure of the Creeping Man; written 1923, set in 1903) and it's bizarre and unpleasant consequences. I've considered the possibilities for out AITAS game, in the Whoniverse such a case might have involved something more outré being ingested (or implanted) and even weirder effects for the Paternoster Gang to investigate.
In France there was considerable interest, during the late nineteenth century/early twentieth century, in what is now called xenotransplantation, the implantation of organs or tissues from one form of animal into another. Probably the most significant practitioner was Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard (
wiki) who experimented with injecting himself with extracts from pulverised dog and guinea pig testicles. Unsurprisingly this experimentation failed to produce any rejuvenation effect.
Voronoff continued from this basis and became obsessed with glandular transplants; his early experiments involved transplanting thyroid glands from chimpanzees to humans with thyroid deficiencies (he wasn't the only physician dabbling with such treatments, Moritz Schiff and Anton von Eiselsberg also performed such transplants, though they generally used human glands harvested from corpses).
Voronoff moved on to transplanting the testicles of executed criminals into millionaires, in the hope of producing increased virility or retarding the aging processes. This profitable line of work was limited by the lack of suitable transplant material and, as demand exceeded supply, he turned to using monkey testicle tissue instead.
Over roughly ten years, between 1917 and 1926, Voronoff carried out hundreds of experimental transplants, mainly in sheep, goats and bulls. His research indicated (to him anyway) that transplantations from younger animals to older caused the older animals to regain the vigour of younger animals. He also considered monkey-gland transplantation an effective treatment to counter senility.
Officially his first transplant involving implanting monkey testicle tissue into a human happened on 12JUN1920. Soon it became a cause célèbre and Voronoff was internationally applauded. Within ten years over five hundred men has been recipients of Voronoff's technique in France alone, with hundreds more operated on in Britain, Germany, the United States and elsewhere. There were also experiments on women, using ovarian transplants to 'cure' menopause and retard aging as well as attempts at creating human/chimpanzee hybrids, an idea distressingly popular in the period that I discussed here.
In an era obsessed with 'modernity' as well as youth, Voronoff claims became immensely popular and he became very wealthy from his work. His fall from favour was rapid however, especially after the isolation of testosterone in 1935 (which involved the 'processing' of hundreds of kilogrammes of bovine testicles from the stockyards of Chicago by college students). By his death in 1951 he was a figure of ridicule.
Of course in the Whoniverse Voronoff (and others) might have been transplanting slices of more exotic creatures into humans; Earth Reptiles perhaps or Weevils. Voronoff maintained his own 'monkey house' for breeding various primates to supply demand; what if he'd been housing Weevils?
There is one curious corollary to Voronoff's work, involving (oddly) Wolverhampton Wanderers football team and their infamous manager, 'the Major', Frank Buckley.
- Buckley was (and is) a controversial figure in English football history; he introduced structured training regimes, improved nutrition and health care, but also dosed players with amphetamines (though he certainly wasn't the only manager to do this) and saw his club banned from European matches due to their "physical" game.
In 1937 Buckley was approached by a dodgy Scottish-chemist named Menzies Sharp (who'd been a student of Voronoff and effectively had a 'franchise' for Britain) regarding a "radical new treatment" that Sharp claimed could improve stamina, accelerate recovery times and improve performance. The 'treatment' involved either monkey gland implantation or the injection of extracts from monkey glands.
- "Glands" here being the preferred euphemism for testicles.
Buckley was interested by Sharp’s proposal but decided to try out the treatment on himself before administering it to his players. Buckley was amazed by the effects:
Quote:
“The treatment lasted three or four months. Long before it was over I felt so much benefit that I asked the players if they would be willing to undergo it and that is how the gland treatment became general at Molineux.”
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Most players were injected twice a week for six weeks (though some refused) and saw a significant improvement in performance, though this was almost certainly a mixture of better training and the placebo effect.
Though it's possible other substances were included in the injections;
Buckley had used amphetamines and one opposing player (after a 7:0 defeat) said a Wanderers player "walked past me with glazed eyes".
The matter stirred up a controversy that made it into the House of Commons after members of parliament asked questions about the legality and safety of the treatment (and suggested applying it to government ministers), The Football League declined to prohibit the process, though requiring it to be accepted voluntarily by players. The "gland treatment" spread and other clubs (at least Portsmouth, Tottenham and Chelsea and probably others) implemented it. In fact the 1939 FA Cup final, between Wanders and Portsmouth, was dubbed the "Monkey Gland Final" by the media. Then the war came and put an end to a bizarre few years in English football, when animal gland extracts became the supplement of choice for the players.......
