Medicine: Testosterone

True to his promise of a month ago that he would soon be able to manufacture the hormone secreted by the testes which accounts for masculinity (TIME, Sept. 2), Dr. Leopold Ruzicka, Swiss chemist, last week announced that his assistants in his Zurich laboratory had just cabled him word of their success. Testosterone is the name of the new hormone. It is related to the male sex hormone, androsterone, found in urine which Dr. Ruzicka previously synthesized. Like androsterone, testosterone is made from the fat (cholesterol) in sheep's wool, but is 25 to 50 times as potent a masculinizer as concentrated androsterone.

Natural testosterone, long anticipated, was discovered in human testicles only last June by Dr. E. Laqueur of Amsterdam. Producing the imitation so soon afterward made Dr. Ruzicka glow with professional pride.

To produce one ounce of natural testosterone would require the castration of some 1,000,000 sturdy men. German and Swiss chemical laboratories are already prepared, said Dr. Ruzicka last week, to manufacture from sheep's wool all the testosterone the world needs to cure homosexuals, revitalize old men.