Thomas Goetz (11:34)
my Old powers, Brown Sicard urged other scientists to conduct their own experiments. And they took him up on it in droves. Soon, testicular extract was being tested around the world, from New York to Paris to Cleveland. Newspapers everywhere began to cover the news as if Brown Sicard had discovered the fountain of youth. By the end of 1889, more than 12,000 physicians worldwide were experimenting with Brown Saccard's fluid manufacturing Chemists were making fortunes selling what they called the elixir of life. Some pitched it as oyster juice. Now, who knows where all those guinea pig testicles might have come from? And honestly, it's unlikely that all those people buying all that elixir were actually getting bonafide testicular extract in time. After the frenzy of hype and bogus treatments, the medical establishment began to push back on Brown Sicard's elixir. They questioned whether the treatment had any benefit at all. Brown Sicard acknowledged as much. He himself raised the possibility that what he experienced was due to auto suggestion, what we would call today the placebo effect. Today, many experts say that's what was going on, the power of suggestion. But Brown Sicard was clearly on to something. He also speculated that extracts from female ovaries could provide relief to women in menopause. That turned out to be true. Here and there, reputable scientists continued to experiment with testicular extract, including two scientists who injected themselves with fluid from bull testes. They gained strength. They tested it curiously on the strength of their middle fingers. The unanswered question, though, was what was in those testicles that seemed to bestow vigor and vitality? Was it the semen? The blood? Something else? The answer would come four decades after Brown Sicard's experiment. By the late 1920s, scientists knew that our bodies were full of hormones, chemicals produced by glands that had specific functions in the body. In the 1930s, a German scientist named Adolph Butinand discovered the first sex hormone in women. Estrone. He had examined the urine of pregnant women. A few years later, he struck again. Boontinand somehow obtained 15,000 liters of urine from Berlin police barracks. Out of that prodigious volume of piss, he extracted 15 milligrams of the first known male hormone, androsterone. Not long after, the scientist and a colleague announced that they had effectively synthesized another male sex hormone, testosterone. In 1939, they were awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry for the discovery. The Nazi government, though they forced Butinant to decline the award. Synthesizing testosterone was everything synthetic hormone meant. No more animal extracts, no more guinea pig or dog Testicles. Now, chemical science could produce testosterone industrially in massive quantities, though in actual fact, at first, the uses were fairly uncommon. Hypogonadism was something severe and rare. It was diagnosed when someone failed to develop testicles or when someone had damaged or non functional testicles. Synthetic testosterone was also used in some cases of anemia and muscle wasting, but it was not a common treatment. But then, in 1945, a new argument for testosterone arrived in a sensational book by the science writer Paul de Kruff called the Male Hormone. This book was a celebration of synthetic testosterone, a manifesto for manhood. Like Brown, Sicard du Krouf believed that testosterone could rekindle the fire of virility in an aging body. And like Brown, Sicard Dukhruf was a willing subject of his own experiments. At 55 years old, he took testosterone supplements for a year before writing the book, and he testified that the benefits were enormous. He had more energy, more muscle mass, and more appetite for sex. The Male Hormone is a fascinating book, in part because for something written back in 1945, it is really honest and upfront about sex, and also because the book foreshadows the same argument and enthusiasm for TRT that exists today in the manosphere among the booming longevity movement. I mean, growing old isn't natural. That's the title of the first chapter. D' Khruuf even argues that taking testosterone will be as common as vitamins. He was truly ahead of his time. So it's something of a surprise that in spite of Dukhruf's popularity and passion, testosterone supplements did not take off in general use in the 1940s and 1950s. Instead, testosterone went underground. In the 1950s, bodybuilders in California began using synthetic testosterone to improve their muscle mass and lean physique. Around the same time, the Soviet Olympic team secretly used testosterone, a Soviet physician spilled the beans to an American team doctor, and so the US weightlifting team included it in their training for the 1954 Games. Testosterone use in sports was an open secret. In theory, the drugs were banned, but there were no valid tests to detect them. In 1969, the editor of Track and Field magazine called anabolic steroids the breakfast of champions. By the time the International Olympic Committee finally began effectively testing for the substances in 1976, they were already wildly abused throughout amateur and professional athletics. Even today, it's a cat and mouse game between steroids and testing. And just to make this clear, all anabolic steroids are either testosterone or they make the body produce more testosterone. That's the Whole game now. Back in the world of legitimate medicine, testosterone was still rarely prescribed for anything that might be considered a lifestyle purpose. For a long time, testosterone replacement therapy was just uncommon. But that would all change when the FDA officially approved AndroGel, a new kind of Testosterone supplement, in 2000. Soon the whole world would learn about something called low T, and the whole idea of masculinity and manhood would never be the same. We'll get into that coming up. But first, here's one of the original commercials that mentions low T. And no, this is not a sponsor or advertiser for Drug Story. This is. This is journalism, people.
