Serge Voronoff
Encyclopedia
Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff was a French
surgeon
of Russian
extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting
monkey
testicle
tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of money, although he was already independently wealthy. As his work fell out of favour, he went from being highly respected to a subject of ridicule. Other doctors, and the public at large, quickly distanced themselves from Voronoff, pretending they had never had any interest in the grafting techniques. By the time of his death in 1951 at the age of 85, few newspapers noted his passing, and those that did acted as if Voronoff had always been ridiculed for his beliefs. In 1999, some speculated that the AIDS
virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff's transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s. Presently, however, his efforts and reputation have been somewhat rehabilitated.
family in a village close to Voronezh
in Russia
shortly before July 10, 1866, the date of his circumcision
in a synagogue
. He emigrated to France
at the age of 18, where he studied medicine
. In 1895 at the age of 29, Voronoff became a naturalized French citizen. Voronoff was a student of French
surgeon, biologist, eugenicist, and Nobel Prize recipient
Alexis Carrel
, from whom he learnt surgical techniques of transplantation
. Between 1896 and 1910, he worked in Egypt
, studying the retarding effects that castration
had on eunuch
s, observations that would lead to his later work on rejuvenation
.
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, trends in xenotransplantation
included the work of Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard
. In 1889, Voronoff injected himself under the skin with extracts from ground-up dog
and guinea pig
testicle
s. These experiments failed to produce the desired results of increased hormonal effects to retard aging.
Voronoff's experiments launched from this starting point. He believed glandular transplants would produce more sustained effects than mere injections. Voronoff's early experiments in this field included transplanting thyroid glands from chimpanzee
s to humans with thyroid deficiencies. He moved on to transplanting the testicles of executed criminals into millionaire
s, but, when demand outstripped supply, he turned to using monkey testicle tissue instead.
Between 1917 and 1926, Voronoff carried out over five hundred transplantations on sheep and goat
s, and also on a bull
, grafting testicles from younger animals to older ones. Voronoff's observations indicated that the transplantations caused the older animals to regain the vigor of younger animals. He also considered monkey-gland transplantation an effective treatment to counter senility.
His first official transplantation of a monkey gland into a human took place on June 12, 1920. Thin slices (a few millimetres wide) of testicles from chimpanzees and baboon
s were implanted inside the patient's scrotum
, the thinness of the tissue samples allowing the foreign tissue to fuse with the human tissue eventually. By 1923, 700 of the world's leading surgeons at the International Congress of Surgeons in London
, England
, applauded the success of Voronoff's work in the "rejuvenation" of old men.
In his book Rejuvenation by Grafting (1925), Voronoff describes what he believes are some of the potential effects of his surgery. While "not an aphrodisiac", he admits the sex drive may be improved. Other possible effects include better memory, the ability to work longer hours, the potential for no longer needing glasses (due to improvement of muscles around the eye), and the prolonging of life. Voronoff also speculates that the grafting surgery might be beneficial to sufferers of "dementia praecox", the mental illness known today as schizophrenia
.
Voronoff's monkey-gland treatment was in vogue in the 1920s. The poet E. E. Cummings
sang of a "famous doctor who inserts monkeyglands in millionaires", and Chicago
surgeon Max Thorek
, for whom the Thorek Hospital and Medical Center is named, recalled that soon, "fashionable dinner parties and cracker barrel confabs, as well as sedate gatherings of the medical élite, were alive with the whisper - 'Monkey Glands'."
By the early 1930s, over 500 men had been treated in France by his rejuvenation technique, and thousands more around the world, such as in a special clinic set up in Algiers
. Noteworthy people who had the surgery included Harold McCormick
, chairman of the board of International Harvester Company, and the aging President of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
. To cope with the demand for the operation, Voronoff set up his own monkey farm on the Italian Riviera
, employing a former circus-animal keeper to run it. French
-born U.S.
coloratura
soprano Lily Pons
was a frequent visitor to the farm. With his growing wealth, Voronoff occupied the whole of the first floor of one of Paris's most expensive hotels, surrounded by a retinue of chauffeurs, valets, personal secretaries and two mistresses.
Voronoff's later work included transplants of monkey ovaries into women. He also tried the reverse experiment, transplanting a human ovary into a female monkey, and then tried to inseminate
the monkey with human sperm
. The notoriety of this experiment resulted in the novel Nora, la guenon devenue femme (Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman) by Félicien Champsaur
. In 1934, he was the first to officially recognise scientific work done by Greek Professor Skevos Zervos
.
In his book The Monkey Gland Affair, David Hamilton, an experienced transplant surgeon, discusses how animal tissue inserted into a human would not be absorbed, but instantly rejected. At best, it would result in scar tissue, which might fool a person into believing the graft is still in place. Interestingly, this means the many patients who received the surgery and praised Voronoff were "improved" solely by the placebo effect
.
Part of the basis of Voronoff's work was that testicles are glands, much like the thyroid and adrenal glands. Voronoff believed that at some point, scientists would discover what substance the testicular glands secrete, making grafting surgery unnecessary.
Eventually, it was determined that the substance emitted by the testicles is testosterone
. Voronoff expected that this new discovery would prove his theories. Testosterone would be injected into animals and they would grow young, strong, and virile. Experiments were performed, and this was not the case. Besides an increase in some secondary sexual characteristics, testosterone injections did little. Testosterone did not prolong life, as Voronoff expected. In the 1940s, Dr. Kenneth Walker, an eminent British surgeon, dismissed Voronoff's treatment as "no better than the methods of witches and magicians."
In the 1940s, his treatment was widely used by football players at Wolverhampton Wanderers
and Portsmouth
, although it eventually fell out of favor.
, Switzerland
, from complications following a fall. While recovering from a broken leg, Voronoff suffered chest difficulties, thought either to be pneumonia
or possibly a blood clot from his leg that moved to his lungs.
As Voronoff was no longer respected, few newspapers ran obituaries, and those that did acted as if Voronoff had always been ridiculed for his beliefs. For example, The New York Times
, once one of his supporters, spelt his name incorrectly and stated that "few took his claims seriously".
Voronoff is buried in the Russian section of the Caucade Cemetery in Nice
.
, suggested that the file on Voronoff's work be reopened and in particular that "the Medical Research Council should fund further studies on monkey glands." By 1994, there were calls for a qualified apology from the orthodox medical establishment for dismissing Voronoff's work. In particular, since modern medicine has established that the Sertoli cells of the testes constitute a barrier to the immune system, rendering the testes an immunologically privileged site for the transplantation of foreign tissue, the thin slices of monkey testicles Voronoff implanted into the patient's testicles may in theory have survived to produce some benefit. There have recently been successful experiments reducing insulin requirements in diabetics by implanting into them pancreatic islet cells from pigs coated in Sertoli cells to insulate them from attack by the immune system. No immunosuppressive drugs were required. In 1998, the sweeping popularity of Viagra brought forth references to Voronoff. However, in 1999, some speculated that the AIDS
virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff's transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s.
By 2003, Voronoff's efforts in the 1920s reached trivia factoid
status for newspapers. However, as recently as 2005, Voronoff's work in the 1920s and 1930s was noted for setting the basis for the modern anti-aging strategy of replacing hormones—the internally secreted substances that decline with age—to regain the vitality and physical attributes associated with youth. Such practices are currently advocated by alternative medicine organizations such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
.
As Voronoff's work became famous in the 1920s, it began to be featured in popular culture. The song "Monkey-Doodle-Doo", written by Irving Berlin and featured in the Marx Brothers
film The Coconuts, contains the line: "If you're too old for dancing/Get yourself a monkey gland". Strange-looking ashtray
s depicting monkeys protecting their private parts, with the phrase (translated from French
) "No, Voronoff, you won't get me!" painted on them began showing up in Parisian homes. At about this same time, a new cocktail containing gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe was named The Monkey Gland.
Voronoff was the prototype for Professor Preobrazhensky in Mikhail Bulgakov
's novel Heart of a Dog
, published in 1925. In the novel, Preobrazhensky implants human testicles and pituitary gland
into a stray dog named Sharik
. Sharik then proceeds to become more and more human as time passes, picks himself the name Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, makes himself a career with the "department of the clearing of the city from cats and other vile animals", and turns the life in the professor's house into a nightmare until the professor reverses the procedure.
The Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Creeping Man
seems to have been inspired by Voronoff's work. Written in 1923 but set in 1903, it is about a distinguished, elderly, Cambridge Professor who experiences bizarre side-effects after secretly taking a drug, derived in an unspecified manner from monkeys, in order to produce rejuvenation.
—they married in 1920 (Bostwick's daughter from a previous marriage was Betty Carstairs
). Evelyn translated into English Voronoff's book Life: a means of restoring vital energy and prolinging life. She died on March 3, 1921, at the age of 48. Her legacy gave Voronoff a large income for the rest of his life.
Ten years later, Voronoff married Gerti Schwartz, believed by some to be the illegitimate daughter of King Carol of Romania
. She outlived him and became the Condesa da Foz upon Voronoff's death.
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
surgeon
Surgeon
In medicine, a surgeon is a specialist in surgery. Surgery is a broad category of invasive medical treatment that involves the cutting of a body, whether human or animal, for a specific reason such as the removal of diseased tissue or to repair a tear or breakage...
of Russian
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...
extraction who gained fame for his technique of grafting
Medical grafting
Grafting refers to a surgical procedure to move tissue from one site to another on the body, or from another person, without bringing its own blood supply with it. Instead, a new blood supply grows in after it is placed. A similar technique where tissue is transferred with the blood supply intact...
monkey
Monkey
A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...
testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
tissue on to the testicles of men for purportedly therapeutic purposes while working in France in the 1920s and 1930s. The technique brought him a great deal of money, although he was already independently wealthy. As his work fell out of favour, he went from being highly respected to a subject of ridicule. Other doctors, and the public at large, quickly distanced themselves from Voronoff, pretending they had never had any interest in the grafting techniques. By the time of his death in 1951 at the age of 85, few newspapers noted his passing, and those that did acted as if Voronoff had always been ridiculed for his beliefs. In 1999, some speculated that the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff's transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s. Presently, however, his efforts and reputation have been somewhat rehabilitated.
Early life
Serge (Samuel) Voronoff was born in SubbotnikSubbotniks
Subbotniks are one of the Russian religious bodies known under the general name of "Judaizing Christian sects". On the whole, the Subbotniks originally differed probably very little from other Judaizing societies. They first appeared during the reign of Catherine II, toward the end of the...
family in a village close to Voronezh
Voronezh
Voronezh is a city in southwestern Russia, the administrative center of Voronezh Oblast. It is located on both sides of the Voronezh River, away from where it flows into the Don. It is an operating center of the Southeastern Railway , as well as the center of the Don Highway...
in Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
shortly before July 10, 1866, the date of his circumcision
Circumcision
Male circumcision is the surgical removal of some or all of the foreskin from the penis. The word "circumcision" comes from Latin and ....
in a synagogue
Synagogue
A synagogue is a Jewish house of prayer. This use of the Greek term synagogue originates in the Septuagint where it sometimes translates the Hebrew word for assembly, kahal...
. He emigrated to France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
at the age of 18, where he studied medicine
Medicine
Medicine is the science and art of healing. It encompasses a variety of health care practices evolved to maintain and restore health by the prevention and treatment of illness....
. In 1895 at the age of 29, Voronoff became a naturalized French citizen. Voronoff was a student of French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
surgeon, biologist, eugenicist, and Nobel Prize recipient
Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...
Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel was a French surgeon and biologist who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1912 for pioneering vascular suturing techniques. He invented the first perfusion pump with Charles A. Lindbergh opening the way to organ transplantation...
, from whom he learnt surgical techniques of transplantation
Organ transplant
Organ transplantation is the moving of an organ from one body to another or from a donor site on the patient's own body, for the purpose of replacing the recipient's damaged or absent organ. The emerging field of regenerative medicine is allowing scientists and engineers to create organs to be...
. Between 1896 and 1910, he worked in Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, studying the retarding effects that castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
had on eunuch
Eunuch
A eunuch is a person born male most commonly castrated, typically early enough in his life for this change to have major hormonal consequences...
s, observations that would lead to his later work on rejuvenation
Rejuvenation (aging)
Rejuvenation is the hypothetical reversal of the aging process.Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow aging...
.
Monkey-gland transplant work
Xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation , is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenografts or xenotransplants...
included the work of Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard FRS , also known as Charles Edward, was a Mauritian physiologist and neurologist who, in 1850, became the first to describe what is now called Brown-Séquard syndrome.-Early life:...
. In 1889, Voronoff injected himself under the skin with extracts from ground-up dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
and guinea pig
Guinea pig
The guinea pig , also called the cavy, is a species of rodent belonging to the family Caviidae and the genus Cavia. Despite their common name, these animals are not in the pig family, nor are they from Guinea...
testicle
Testicle
The testicle is the male gonad in animals. Like the ovaries to which they are homologous, testes are components of both the reproductive system and the endocrine system...
s. These experiments failed to produce the desired results of increased hormonal effects to retard aging.
Voronoff's experiments launched from this starting point. He believed glandular transplants would produce more sustained effects than mere injections. Voronoff's early experiments in this field included transplanting thyroid glands from chimpanzee
Chimpanzee
Chimpanzee, sometimes colloquially chimp, is the common name for the two extant species of ape in the genus Pan. The Congo River forms the boundary between the native habitat of the two species:...
s to humans with thyroid deficiencies. He moved on to transplanting the testicles of executed criminals into millionaire
Millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. It can also be a person who owns one million units of currency in a bank account or savings account...
s, but, when demand outstripped supply, he turned to using monkey testicle tissue instead.
Between 1917 and 1926, Voronoff carried out over five hundred transplantations on sheep and goat
Goat
The domestic goat is a subspecies of goat domesticated from the wild goat of southwest Asia and Eastern Europe. The goat is a member of the Bovidae family and is closely related to the sheep as both are in the goat-antelope subfamily Caprinae. There are over three hundred distinct breeds of...
s, and also on a bull
Bull
Bull usually refers to an uncastrated adult male bovine.Bull may also refer to:-Entertainment:* Bull , an original show on the TNT Network* "Bull" , an episode of television series CSI: Crime Scene Investigation...
, grafting testicles from younger animals to older ones. Voronoff's observations indicated that the transplantations caused the older animals to regain the vigor of younger animals. He also considered monkey-gland transplantation an effective treatment to counter senility.
His first official transplantation of a monkey gland into a human took place on June 12, 1920. Thin slices (a few millimetres wide) of testicles from chimpanzees and baboon
Baboon
Baboons are African and Arabian Old World monkeys belonging to the genus Papio, part of the subfamily Cercopithecinae. There are five species, which are some of the largest non-hominoid members of the primate order; only the mandrill and the drill are larger...
s were implanted inside the patient's scrotum
Scrotum
In some male mammals the scrotum is a dual-chambered protuberance of skin and muscle containing the testicles and divided by a septum. It is an extension of the perineum, and is located between the penis and anus. In humans and some other mammals, the base of the scrotum becomes covered with curly...
, the thinness of the tissue samples allowing the foreign tissue to fuse with the human tissue eventually. By 1923, 700 of the world's leading surgeons at the International Congress of Surgeons in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, applauded the success of Voronoff's work in the "rejuvenation" of old men.
In his book Rejuvenation by Grafting (1925), Voronoff describes what he believes are some of the potential effects of his surgery. While "not an aphrodisiac", he admits the sex drive may be improved. Other possible effects include better memory, the ability to work longer hours, the potential for no longer needing glasses (due to improvement of muscles around the eye), and the prolonging of life. Voronoff also speculates that the grafting surgery might be beneficial to sufferers of "dementia praecox", the mental illness known today as schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
.
Voronoff's monkey-gland treatment was in vogue in the 1920s. The poet E. E. Cummings
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings , popularly known as E. E. Cummings, with the abbreviated form of his name often written by others in lowercase letters as e.e. cummings , was an American poet, painter, essayist, author, and playwright...
sang of a "famous doctor who inserts monkeyglands in millionaires", and Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
surgeon Max Thorek
Max Thorek
Max Thorek was born in Hungary. His family emigrated to Chicago where Thorek finished his medical degree at Rush Medical College in 1904. Thorek worked in obstetrics, general, and reconstructive surgery. His innovative techniques and practices are still widely used in surgery today...
, for whom the Thorek Hospital and Medical Center is named, recalled that soon, "fashionable dinner parties and cracker barrel confabs, as well as sedate gatherings of the medical élite, were alive with the whisper - 'Monkey Glands'."
Algiers
' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
. Noteworthy people who had the surgery included Harold McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick
Harold Fowler McCormick, Sr. was chairman of the board of International Harvester Company.-Biography:He was born on May 2, 1872, the sixth child of Cyrus McCormick, inventor and manufacturer of the mechanical reaper; and Nancy Fowler McCormick.He graduated from Princeton University in 1895...
, chairman of the board of International Harvester Company, and the aging President of Turkey Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was an Ottoman and Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and the first President of Turkey. He is credited with being the founder of the Republic of Turkey....
. To cope with the demand for the operation, Voronoff set up his own monkey farm on the Italian Riviera
Menton
Menton is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southeastern France.Situated on the French Riviera, along the Franco-Italian border, it is nicknamed la perle de la France ....
, employing a former circus-animal keeper to run it. French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
-born U.S.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
coloratura
Coloratura
Coloratura has several meanings. The word is originally from Italian, literally meaning "coloring", and derives from the Latin word colorare . When used in English, the term specifically refers to elaborate melody, particularly in vocal music and especially in operatic singing of the 18th and...
soprano Lily Pons
Lily Pons
Lily Pons was a French-American operatic soprano and actress who had an active career from the late 1920s through the early 1970s. As an opera singer she specialized in the coloratura soprano repertoire and was particularly associated with the title roles in Léo Delibes' Lakmé and Gaetano...
was a frequent visitor to the farm. With his growing wealth, Voronoff occupied the whole of the first floor of one of Paris's most expensive hotels, surrounded by a retinue of chauffeurs, valets, personal secretaries and two mistresses.
Voronoff's later work included transplants of monkey ovaries into women. He also tried the reverse experiment, transplanting a human ovary into a female monkey, and then tried to inseminate
Insemination
Insemination is the deliberate introduction of sperm into the uterus of a mammal or the oviduct of an oviparous animal for the objective of impregnating a female for reproduction...
the monkey with human sperm
Spermatozoon
A spermatozoon is a motile sperm cell, or moving form of the haploid cell that is the male gamete. A spermatozoon joins an ovum to form a zygote...
. The notoriety of this experiment resulted in the novel Nora, la guenon devenue femme (Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman) by Félicien Champsaur
Félicien Champsaur
Félicien Champsaur was a French novelist and journalist.Champsaur was born at Turriers, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. His first novel was the roman á clef Dinah Samuel , said to present portraits of poet Arthur Rimbaud and actress Sarah Bernhardt...
. In 1934, he was the first to officially recognise scientific work done by Greek Professor Skevos Zervos
Skevos Zervos
Skevos Georges Zervos, also known as Skevos Zervos was a prominent Greek Professor; a pioneer surgeon in Transplants and Telemedicine, who became a local and national benefactor in Greece....
.
Falling out of favour
Voronoff's experiments ended following pressure from a skeptical scientific community and a change in public opinion. It became clear that Voronoff's operations did not produce any of the results he claimed.In his book The Monkey Gland Affair, David Hamilton, an experienced transplant surgeon, discusses how animal tissue inserted into a human would not be absorbed, but instantly rejected. At best, it would result in scar tissue, which might fool a person into believing the graft is still in place. Interestingly, this means the many patients who received the surgery and praised Voronoff were "improved" solely by the placebo effect
Placebo effect
Placebo effect may refer to:* Placebo effect, the tendency of any medication or treatment, even an inert or ineffective one, to exhibit results simply because the recipient believes that it will work...
.
Part of the basis of Voronoff's work was that testicles are glands, much like the thyroid and adrenal glands. Voronoff believed that at some point, scientists would discover what substance the testicular glands secrete, making grafting surgery unnecessary.
Eventually, it was determined that the substance emitted by the testicles is testosterone
Testosterone
Testosterone is a steroid hormone from the androgen group and is found in mammals, reptiles, birds, and other vertebrates. In mammals, testosterone is primarily secreted in the testes of males and the ovaries of females, although small amounts are also secreted by the adrenal glands...
. Voronoff expected that this new discovery would prove his theories. Testosterone would be injected into animals and they would grow young, strong, and virile. Experiments were performed, and this was not the case. Besides an increase in some secondary sexual characteristics, testosterone injections did little. Testosterone did not prolong life, as Voronoff expected. In the 1940s, Dr. Kenneth Walker, an eminent British surgeon, dismissed Voronoff's treatment as "no better than the methods of witches and magicians."
In the 1940s, his treatment was widely used by football players at Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C.
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club is an English professional association football club that represents the city of Wolverhampton in the West Midlands region. They are members of the Premier League, the highest level of English football. The club was founded in 1877 and since 1889 has played at...
and Portsmouth
Portsmouth F.C.
Portsmouth Football Club is an English football club based in the city of Portsmouth. The club is nicknamed Pompey. Portsmouth's home matches have been played at Fratton Park since the club's formation in 1898. The team currently play in the Football League Championship after being relegated from...
, although it eventually fell out of favor.
Death and burial
Voronoff died on September 3, 1951, in LausanneLausanne
Lausanne is a city in Romandy, the French-speaking part of Switzerland, and is the capital of the canton of Vaud. The seat of the district of Lausanne, the city is situated on the shores of Lake Geneva . It faces the French town of Évian-les-Bains, with the Jura mountains to its north-west...
, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....
, from complications following a fall. While recovering from a broken leg, Voronoff suffered chest difficulties, thought either to be pneumonia
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung—especially affecting the microscopic air sacs —associated with fever, chest symptoms, and a lack of air space on a chest X-ray. Pneumonia is typically caused by an infection but there are a number of other causes...
or possibly a blood clot from his leg that moved to his lungs.
As Voronoff was no longer respected, few newspapers ran obituaries, and those that did acted as if Voronoff had always been ridiculed for his beliefs. For example, The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, once one of his supporters, spelt his name incorrectly and stated that "few took his claims seriously".
Voronoff is buried in the Russian section of the Caucade Cemetery in Nice
Nice
Nice is the fifth most populous city in France, after Paris, Marseille, Lyon and Toulouse, with a population of 348,721 within its administrative limits on a land area of . The urban area of Nice extends beyond the administrative city limits with a population of more than 955,000 on an area of...
.
Reputation and legacy
In the 1990s, Voronoff's negative reputation was softened. In November 1991, one of the oldest peer-reviewed medical journals in the world, The LancetThe Lancet
The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal. It is one of the world's best known, oldest, and most respected general medical journals...
, suggested that the file on Voronoff's work be reopened and in particular that "the Medical Research Council should fund further studies on monkey glands." By 1994, there were calls for a qualified apology from the orthodox medical establishment for dismissing Voronoff's work. In particular, since modern medicine has established that the Sertoli cells of the testes constitute a barrier to the immune system, rendering the testes an immunologically privileged site for the transplantation of foreign tissue, the thin slices of monkey testicles Voronoff implanted into the patient's testicles may in theory have survived to produce some benefit. There have recently been successful experiments reducing insulin requirements in diabetics by implanting into them pancreatic islet cells from pigs coated in Sertoli cells to insulate them from attack by the immune system. No immunosuppressive drugs were required. In 1998, the sweeping popularity of Viagra brought forth references to Voronoff. However, in 1999, some speculated that the AIDS
AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
virus discovered in the 1980s entered the human population through Voronoff's transfer of monkey parts into humans in the 1920s.
By 2003, Voronoff's efforts in the 1920s reached trivia factoid
Factoid
A factoid is a questionable or spurious—unverified, incorrect, or fabricated—statement presented as a fact, but with no veracity. The word can also be used to describe a particularly insignificant or novel fact, in the absence of much relevant context...
status for newspapers. However, as recently as 2005, Voronoff's work in the 1920s and 1930s was noted for setting the basis for the modern anti-aging strategy of replacing hormones—the internally secreted substances that decline with age—to regain the vitality and physical attributes associated with youth. Such practices are currently advocated by alternative medicine organizations such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine
The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine is a United States registered 501 nonprofit organization that promotes the field of anti-aging medicine and trains and certifies physicians in this specialty. As of 2011, approximately 26,000 practitioners had been given certificates...
.
Popular culture
Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act, originally from New York City, that enjoyed success in Vaudeville, Broadway, and motion pictures from the early 1900s to around 1950...
film The Coconuts, contains the line: "If you're too old for dancing/Get yourself a monkey gland". Strange-looking ashtray
Ashtray
An ashtray is a receptacle for ash and butts from cigarettes and cigars. Ashtrays are typically made of fireproof material such as glass, heat-resistant plastic, pottery, metal, or rock....
s depicting monkeys protecting their private parts, with the phrase (translated from French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
) "No, Voronoff, you won't get me!" painted on them began showing up in Parisian homes. At about this same time, a new cocktail containing gin, orange juice, grenadine and absinthe was named The Monkey Gland.
Voronoff was the prototype for Professor Preobrazhensky in Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhail Bulgakov
Mikhaíl Afanásyevich Bulgákov was a Soviet Russian writer and playwright active in the first half of the 20th century. He is best known for his novel The Master and Margarita, which The Times of London has called one of the masterpieces of the 20th century.-Biography:Mikhail Bulgakov was born on...
's novel Heart of a Dog
Heart of a Dog
Heart of a Dog , a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a biting satire of the New Soviet man written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when Communism appeared to be weakening in the Soviet Union....
, published in 1925. In the novel, Preobrazhensky implants human testicles and pituitary gland
Pituitary gland
In vertebrate anatomy the pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is an endocrine gland about the size of a pea and weighing 0.5 g , in humans. It is a protrusion off the bottom of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain, and rests in a small, bony cavity covered by a dural fold...
into a stray dog named Sharik
Heart of a Dog
Heart of a Dog , a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a biting satire of the New Soviet man written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when Communism appeared to be weakening in the Soviet Union....
. Sharik then proceeds to become more and more human as time passes, picks himself the name Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, makes himself a career with the "department of the clearing of the city from cats and other vile animals", and turns the life in the professor's house into a nightmare until the professor reverses the procedure.
The Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Creeping Man
The Adventure of the Creeping Man
"The Adventure of the Creeping Man", one of the 56 Sherlock Holmes short stories written by British author Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, is one of 12 stories in the cycle collected as The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes.-Synopsis:...
seems to have been inspired by Voronoff's work. Written in 1923 but set in 1903, it is about a distinguished, elderly, Cambridge Professor who experiences bizarre side-effects after secretly taking a drug, derived in an unspecified manner from monkeys, in order to produce rejuvenation.
Personal life
Voronoff married his first wife, Marguerite Barbe, in 1897; she died in 1910. His second wife was Evelyn Bostwick, a wealthy New York socialite and the daughter of Jabez BostwickBostwick family
The Bostwick's are decendants of Robert De Brostick, born in 1522 in EnglandA branch of the New York Bostwick family rose to prominence when Jabez Abel Bostwick made a fortune in business and was a founding partner and first Treasurer of the Standard Oil Company....
—they married in 1920 (Bostwick's daughter from a previous marriage was Betty Carstairs
Betty Carstairs
Betty Carstairs was a wealthy British power boat racer known for her speed and her eccentric lifestyle.-Biography:She was born in 1900 as Marion Barbara Carstairs in Mayfair, London, England, the daughter of Frances Evelyn Bostwick, second child of Jabez Bostwick and his wife Helen, and Captain...
). Evelyn translated into English Voronoff's book Life: a means of restoring vital energy and prolinging life. She died on March 3, 1921, at the age of 48. Her legacy gave Voronoff a large income for the rest of his life.
Ten years later, Voronoff married Gerti Schwartz, believed by some to be the illegitimate daughter of King Carol of Romania
Carol II of Romania
Carol II reigned as King of Romania from 8 June 1930 until 6 September 1940. Eldest son of Ferdinand, King of Romania, and his wife, Queen Marie, a daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the second eldest son of Queen Victoria...
. She outlived him and became the Condesa da Foz upon Voronoff's death.
Works by Voronoff
- Voronoff, Serge. (1920) Life: A Study of the Means of Restoring. Publisher: E. P. Dutton & Company, New York. ASIN B000MX31EC
- Voronoff, Serge. (1923) Greffes Testiculaires. Publisher: Librairie Octave Doin. ASIN B000JOOIA0
- Voronoff, Serge. (1924) Quarante-Trois Greffes Du Singe a L'homme. Publisher: Doin Octave. ASIN B000HZVQUQ
- Voronoff, Serge. (1925) Rejuvenation by grafting. Publisher: Adelphi. Translation edited by Fred. F. Imianitoff. ASIN B000OSQH5K
- Voronoff, Serge. (1926) Etude sur la Vieillesse et la Rajeunissement par la Greffe. Publisher: Arodan, Colombes, France. ASIN B000MWZJHU
- Voronoff, Serge. (1926) The study of old age and my method of rejuvenation. Publisher: Gill Pub. Co. ASIN B000873F7A
- Voronoff, Serge. (1928) How to restore youth and live longer. Publisher: Falstaff Press. ASIN B000881RLU
- Voronoff, Serge. (1928) The conquest of life. Publisher: Brentano's. ASIN B000862P0E
- Voronoff, Serge. (1930) Testicular grafting from ape to man: Operative technique, physiological manifestations, histological evolutions, statistics. Publisher: Brentano's. ASIN B00088JAL4
- Voronoff, Serge. (1933) Les sources de la vie. Publisher: Fasquelle editeur. ASIN B000K5XTTO
- Voronoff, Serge. (1933) The Conquest of Life. Publisher: Brentano's. ASIN B000862P0E
- Voronoff, Serge. (1937) Love and thought in animals and men. Publisher: Methuen. ASIN B000HH293C
- Voronoff, Serge. (1941) From Cretin to Genius. Publisher: Alliance. ASIN B000FX4UP8
- Voronoff, Serge. (1943) The Sources of Life. Publisher: Boston, Bruce Humphries. ASIN B000NV3MZ6
See also
- Cosmic MovementCosmic MovementThe Cosmic Movement was the organisation established by Max Theon around 1900, in Tlemcen, Algeria, at the instigation of his wife Alma Theon, whom he declared to be the moving spirit behind the group. Its journal was the Cosmic Review...
- Eugen SteinachEugen SteinachEugen Steinach was a leading Austrian physiologist and pioneer in endocrinology.-Biography:He was born on January 28, 1861 in Austria....
- Monkeygland sauceMonkeygland sauceMonkeygland Sauce is a restaurant item in South Africa. The piquant sauce features a blend of fruit and spices and is often used with steak, hamburgers, pork ribs or chicken. Several popular South African fast-food chains serve a Monkeygland Burger....
- The Monkey Gland