The Male Hormone.

The stumbling block in the successful demonstration of the testicular hormone has been the absence of a reliable animal test. Pézard and his collaborators found that caponized cockerels are good objects for demonstrating the presence of the hormone. They have shown that when ovarian grafts are introduced into such animals, the combs (and whiskers) diminish in size, become pale, and the feathers change in the direction of the female type. Testicular grafts, on the other hand, emphasize masculinity. Carindroit and Pézard 1 succeeded in demonstrating the presence of the male hormone in the blood of cocks. Busquet, 2 using the same test, concluded that the hormone exists in the blood of various young animals. He also claims to have obtained encouraging results by oral administration.

In view of the apparent successful demonstration of the presence of the male hormone in the circulating blood, and of the estrus-producing hormone in the urine of pregnant women 3 it seemed of value to investigate the urine of young men, in the hope of showing the presence of the male hormone.

Lowe and Voss 4 show the presence of “testiculin” in the urine of men. The method, however, is not described, and no details are given. Oslund 5 records the injection of fresh sperm from the vas deferens into 3 caponized cockerels, resulting in positive comb growth. We present our results which, though still in its initial stages, is already based on considerably more experiments than those recorded by Oslund.

So far some 58 cocks, about 2 months in age, have been castrated. Of these, 13 died. Of the remaining 45, we believe the earlier 15 were badly castrated: but the later 30 seem to have been well castrated, judging by the results obtained.