Medicine: Testosterone Tested

Some medical discoveries are over-ballyhooed. Among them is testosterone, now sometimes puffed as a great rejuvenator. Actually there is no such thing as a "rejuvenator."

Testosterone is a powerful male sex hormone which is manufactured by male sex glands, was discovered in The Netherlands in 1935, and made synthetically in Switzerland the same year from the fat of sheep's wool. In the hands of competent doctors, testosterone has definitely helped cases of pathological sex inadequacy, by bringing the patient's sexual functioning up to par. But there is no evidence that it retards the natural sex decline and general debility of old age. Last week the experiments of Dr. V. G. Korenchevsky of Britain's Lister Institute proved that testosterone prolongs potency in neither man nor beast. Dr. Korenchevsky worked with rats—which, for medical research purposes, are almost miniature human beings.

The scientist found that testosterone does increase the size of external sex organs in elderly rats—"but it does not cause any noticeable improvement in their appearance and behavior. As these organs . . . may be well preserved in otherwise senile animals and men, the absence of a rejuvenating effect is not surprising. . . . Without simultaneous improvement of the general condition, this sex stimulation is biologically unnatural and in human patients is medically undesirable."

Moreover, while the external organs of stimulated rats grew larger, the sex glands themselves grew smaller.