Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff (russian: link=no, Сергей Абрамович Воронов; c. July 10, 1866September 3, 1951) was a French surgeon of Russian extraction who gained fame for his technique of
grafting
Grafting or graftage is a horticultural technique whereby tissues of plants are joined so as to continue their growth together. The upper part of the combined plant is called the scion () while the lower part is called the rootstock. The succ ...
monkey testicle tissue onto 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. However, his theories remained controversial throughout his life, and he was often ridiculed by medical authorities over his claims. According to one contemporary newspaper, he was famously known as the "monkey gland man."
[Monkey Gland Man Dies, Buried Italy](_blank)
''TimesDaily
The ''TimesDaily'' is the daily newspaper for Florence, Alabama. ''The TimesDaily'' covers a four-county region in Alabama including Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, and Lawrence counties, as well as portions of southern Tennessee and northeast M ...
''
Personal life
Serge (Samuel) Voronoff was born to a Jewish family in the village Shekhman,
Tambov Governorate
Tambov Governorate was an administrative unit of the Russian Empire, Russian Republic, and later the Russian SFSR, centred around the city of Tambov. The governorate was located between 51°14' and 55°6' north and between 38°9' and 43°38' east ...
in Russia (now
Tambov Oblast
Tambov Oblast (russian: Тамбо́вская о́бласть, ''Tambovskaya oblast'') is a federal subject of Russia (an oblast). Its administrative center is the city of Tambov. As of the 2010 Census, its population was 1,091,994.
Geo ...
) shortly before July 10, 1866, the date of his
circumcision
Circumcision is a surgical procedure, procedure that removes the foreskin from the human penis. In the most common form of the operation, the foreskin is extended with forceps, then a circumcision device may be placed, after which the foreskin ...
in a
synagogue
A synagogue, ', 'house of assembly', or ', "house of prayer"; Yiddish: ''shul'', Ladino: or ' (from synagogue); or ', "community". sometimes referred to as shul, and interchangeably used with the word temple, is a Jewish house of worshi ...
. His father Abram Veniaminovich Voronov was a former
cantonist
Cantonists (Russian language: кантонисты; more properly: военные кантонисты, "military cantonists") were underage sons of conscripts in the Russian Empire. From 1721 on they were educated in special "canton schools" (К ...
and a distiller; his mother was Rachel-Esther Lipsky. At the age of 18, after graduating from the
Voronezh
Voronezh ( rus, links=no, Воро́неж, p=vɐˈronʲɪʂ}) is a city and the administrative centre of Voronezh Oblast in southwestern Russia straddling the Voronezh River, located from where it flows into the Don River. The city sits on the ...
Realschule
''Realschule'' () is a type of secondary school in Germany, Switzerland and Liechtenstein. It has also existed in Croatia (''realna gimnazija''), the Austrian Empire, the German Empire, Denmark and Norway (''realskole''), Sweden (''realskola''), ...
, he emigrated to France, where he studied medicine. In 1895 at the age of 29, Voronoff became a
naturalized
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the in ...
French citizen. Voronoff was a student of French surgeon, biologist,
eugenicist
Eugenics ( ; ) is a fringe set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter human gene pools by excluding people and groups judged to be inferior or ...
, and
Nobel Prize recipient Alexis Carrel
Alexis Carrel (; 28 June 1873 – 5 November 1944) 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 Charle ...
, from whom he learnt surgical techniques of
transplantation. Between 1896 and 1910, he worked in Egypt, studying the retarding effects that
castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which an individual loses use of the testicles: the male gonad. Surgical castration is bilateral orchiectomy (excision of both testicles), while chemical castration uses pharmaceut ...
had on
eunuch
A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function.
The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium ...
s, observations that would lead to his later work on
rejuvenation
Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical 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 ...
.
Voronoff married his first wife, Marguerite Barbe, in 1897. She died in 1910. He married his second wife, Evelyn Bostwick, in 1920 (Bostwick's daughter from a previous marriage was
Marion "Joe" Carstairs). Bostwick translated Voronoff's book, ''Life: a means of restoring vital energy and prolonging life'', into English. 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
Condesa or La Condesa is an area in the Cuauhtémoc Borough of Mexico City, south of Zona Rosa and 4 to 5 km west of the Zócalo, the city's main square. It is immediately west of Colonia Roma, together with which it is designated as ...
da Foz upon Voronoff's death.
Death and burial
Voronoff died on September 3, 1951, in
Lausanne
, neighboring_municipalities= Bottens, Bretigny-sur-Morrens, Chavannes-près-Renens, Cheseaux-sur-Lausanne, Crissier, Cugy, Écublens, Épalinges, Évian-les-Bains (FR-74), Froideville, Jouxtens-Mézery, Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Lugrin (FR-74), ...
, Switzerland, from complications following a fall.
[Hamilton, David. (1986) ''The Monkey Gland Affair.'' Publisher: Chatto & Windus. ] While recovering from a broken leg, Voronoff suffered chest difficulties, thought either to be
pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...
or possibly a blood clot from his leg that moved to his lungs.
Few newspapers ran obituaries, and some of 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 Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', once one of his supporters, spelt his name incorrectly and stated that "few took his claims seriously".
On the other hand, ''
TimesDaily
The ''TimesDaily'' is the daily newspaper for Florence, Alabama. ''The TimesDaily'' covers a four-county region in Alabama including Lauderdale, Colbert, Franklin, and Lawrence counties, as well as portions of southern Tennessee and northeast M ...
'' was more positive, calling him a "famed prononent proponent of rejuvenation for humans through monkey glands" and claiming that he actually became more popular later in life: "Medical authorities at first rejected his theories, but later developments confirmed some of his ideas."
Voronoff is buried in the Russian section of the
Caucade Cemetery in
Nice
Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...
.
Monkey-gland transplant work
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, trends in
xenotransplantation
Xenotransplantation (''xenos-'' from the Greek meaning "foreign" or strange), or heterologous transplant, is the transplantation of living cells, tissues or organs from one species to another. Such cells, tissues or organs are called xenograft ...
included the work of
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard
Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard FRS (8 April 1817 – 2 April 1894) was a Mauritian physiologist and neurologist who, in 1850, became the first to describe what is now called Brown-Séquard syndrome.
Early life
Brown-Séquard was born at Port ...
. In 1889, Brown-Séquard injected himself under the skin with extracts from ground-up
dog
The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it is derived from the extinct Pleistocene wolf, and the modern wolf is the dog's nearest living relative. Do ...
and
guinea pig
The guinea pig or domestic guinea pig (''Cavia porcellus''), also known as the cavy or domestic cavy (), is a species of rodent belonging to the genus ''Cavia'' in the family Caviidae. Breeders tend to use the word ''cavy'' to describe the ani ...
testicle
A testicle or testis (plural testes) is the male reproductive gland or gonad in all bilaterians, including humans. It is homologous to the female ovary. The functions of the testes are to produce both sperm and androgens, primarily testostero ...
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 gland
The thyroid, or thyroid gland, is an endocrine gland in vertebrates. In humans it is in the neck and consists of two connected lobe (anatomy), lobes. The lower two thirds of the lobes are connected by a thin band of Connective tissue, tissue cal ...
s from
chimpanzee
The chimpanzee (''Pan troglodytes''), also known as simply the chimp, is a species of great ape native to the forest and savannah of tropical Africa. It has four confirmed subspecies and a fifth proposed subspecies. When its close relative th ...
s to humans with thyroid deficiencies. He moved on to transplanting the testicles of executed
criminal
In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definitions of", in Can ...
s into
millionaire
A millionaire is an individual whose net worth or wealth is equal to or exceeds one million units of currency. Depending on the currency, a certain level of prestige is associated with being a millionaire. In countries that use the short scal ...
s, but, when demand outstripped supply, he turned to using monkey testicle tissue instead.
In 1917, Voronoff began being funded by Evelyn Bostwick, a wealthy American socialite and the daughter of
Jabez Bostwick
Jabez Abel Bostwick (September 23, 1830 – August 16, 1892) was an American businessman who was a founding partner of Standard Oil.
Early life
Bostwick was born in Delhi (town), New York, Delhi, New York on September 23, 1830. He was a son of A ...
. The money allowed him to begin transplantation experiments on animals. Bostwick also acted as his laboratory assistant at the
Collège de France
The Collège de France (), formerly known as the ''Collège Royal'' or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment (''grand établissement'') in France. It is located in Paris ne ...
in Paris, and consequently became the first woman admitted to that institution. They married in 1920.
Between 1917 and 1926, Voronoff carried out over five hundred transplantations on sheep and goats, 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
Dementia is a disorder which manifests as a set of related symptoms, which usually surfaces when the brain is damaged by injury or disease. The symptoms involve progressive impairments in memory, thinking, and behavior, which negatively affec ...
.
His first official transplantation of a monkey gland into a human took place on June 12, 1920.
[Gillyboeuf, Thierry. (October 2000) The Journal of the E. E. Cummings Society. ]
The Famous Doctor Who Inserts Monkeyglands in Millionaires.
'' Pg. 44-45. Thin slices (a few millimetres wide) of testicles from chimpanzees and
baboon
Baboons are primates comprising the genus ''Papio'', one of the 23 genera of Old World monkeys. There are six species of baboon: the hamadryas baboon, the Guinea baboon, the olive baboon, the yellow baboon, the Kinda baboon and the chacma ba ...
s were implanted inside the patient's
scrotum
The scrotum or scrotal sac is an anatomical male reproductive structure located at the base of the penis that consists of a suspended dual-chambered sac of skin and smooth muscle. It is present in most terrestrial male mammals. The scrotum cont ...
, 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 people with "dementia praecox", the mental illness known today as
schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social withdra ...
.
Voronoff's monkey-gland treatment was in vogue in the 1920s. The poet
E. E. Cummings
Edward Estlin Cummings, who was also known as E. E. Cummings, e. e. cummings and e e cummings (October 14, 1894 - September 3, 1962), was an American poet, painter, essayist, author and playwright. He wrote approximately 2,900 poems, two autobi ...
sang of a "famous doctor who inserts monkeyglands in millionaires", and
Chicago
(''City in a Garden''); I Will
, image_map =
, map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago
, coordinates =
, coordinates_footnotes =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name ...
surgeon
Max Thorek
Max Thorek (10 March 1880 – 25 January 1960) was a Hungarian-American surgeon, best known for founding the International College of Surgeons in 1935 and writing his autobiography entitled ''A Surgeon's World'' in 1943. , 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'."
[Sengoopta, Chandak. (August 1, 2006) ]History Today
''History Today'' is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it presents serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible. The magazine covers all periods and geographical regions and pub ...
''Secrets of Ethernal Youth.'' Volume 56; Issue 8; Page 50. (A review of how the discovery of hormones, the body's chemical messengers, revolutionized ideas of human nature and human potential in the twentieth century.)
By the early 1930s, over 500 men had been treated in France by his rejuvenation technique (including Voronoff's younger brother Georges), and thousands more around the world, such as in a special clinic set up in
Algiers
Algiers ( ; ar, الجزائر, al-Jazāʾir; ber, Dzayer, script=Latn; french: Alger, ) is the capital and largest city of Algeria. The city's population at the 2008 Census was 2,988,145Census 14 April 2008: Office National des Statistiques ...
. Noteworthy people who had the surgery included
Harold McCormick, chairman of the board of
International Harvester Company
The International Harvester Company (often abbreviated by IHC, IH, or simply International ( colloq.)) was an American manufacturer of agricultural and construction equipment, automobiles, commercial trucks, lawn and garden products, household e ...
. To cope with the demand for the operation, Voronoff set up his own monkey farm in
Ventimiglia
Ventimiglia (; lij, label=Intemelio, Ventemiglia , lij, label= Genoese, Vintimiggia; french: Vintimille ; oc, label= Provençal, Ventemilha ) is a resort town in the province of Imperia, Liguria, northern Italy. It is located southwest of ...
, on the
Italian Riviera
The Italian Riviera or Ligurian Riviera ( it, Riviera ligure; lij, Rivêa lìgure) is the narrow coastal strip in Italy which lies between the Ligurian Sea and the mountain chain formed by the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Longitudinall ...
, employing a former circus-animal keeper to run it.
French-born U.S.
coloratura
Coloratura is an elaborate melody with runs, trills, wide leaps, or similar virtuoso-like material,''Oxford American Dictionaries''.Apel (1969), p. 184. or a passage of such music. Operatic roles in which such music plays a prominent part, an ...
soprano
Lily Pons
Alice Joséphine Pons (April 12, 1898 – February 13, 1976), known professionally as 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 s ...
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.
[Le Fanu, James (January 6, 1994) '']The Times
''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...
'' ''The monkey gland secret.'' Section: Features; Page 15.
Voronoff's later work included transplants of monkey
ovaries
The ovary is an organ in the female reproductive system that produces an ovum. When released, this travels down the fallopian tube into the uterus, where it may become fertilized by a sperm. There is an ovary () found on each side of the body. T ...
into women. He also tried the reverse experiment, transplanting a human ovary into a female monkey, and then tried to
inseminate
Insemination is the introduction of sperm into a female’s reproductive system for the purpose of impregnating, also called fertilizing, the female for sexual reproduction. The sperm is introduced into the uterus of a mammal or the oviduct of an ...
the monkey with human
sperm
Sperm is the male reproductive cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm with a tail known as a flagellum, whi ...
. The notoriety of this experiment resulted in the novel ''Nora, la guenon devenue femme'' (''Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman'') by
Félicien Champsaur
Félicien Champsaur (1858–1934) was a French novelist and journalist.
Champsaur was born at Turriers, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence. His first novel was the ''roman à clef'' ''Dinah Samuel'' (1882), said to present portraits of poet Arthur Rimbau ...
. In 1934, he was the first to officially recognise scientific work done by Greek Professor
Skevos Zervos.
Falling out of favour
Voronoff's experiments ended following pressure from a sceptical 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. This means the many patients who received the surgery and praised Voronoff were "improved" solely by the
placebo effect
A placebo ( ) is a substance or treatment which is designed to have no therapeutic value. Common placebos include inert tablets (like sugar pills), inert injections (like Saline (medicine), saline), sham surgery, and other procedures.
In general ...
.
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 is the primary sex hormone and anabolic steroid in males. In humans, testosterone plays a key role in the development of Male reproductive system, male reproductive tissues such as testes and prostate, as well as promoting secondar ...
. 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, Kenneth Walker, an eminent British surgeon, dismissed Voronoff's treatment as "no better than the methods of witches and magicians."
[ ''The Cincinnati-Kentucky Post'' (November 5, 1998) ''Medical monkey business.'' Section:News; Page 22A]
In the 1940s, his treatment was widely used by football players at
Wolverhampton Wanderers
Wolverhampton Wanderers Football Club (), commonly known as Wolves, is a professional football club based in Wolverhampton, England, which compete in the . The club has played at Molineux Stadium since moving from Dudley Road in 1889. The club's ...
and
Portsmouth
Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council.
Portsmouth is the most dens ...
, although it eventually fell out of favour.
Reputation and legacy
By 1935, rejuvenation operations on testes were obsolete.
Kozminski and Bloom (2012) wrote that Voronoff's experiments were "plagued by secrecy, subjectivity and sensationalism", adding that the era of testosterone surgery was ended by a "lack of verifiable data".
[ They write that Voronoff and others can be faulted for "paternalistic use of patients and misogynistic message of testicular power", but that efforts such as these in the history of urology may have helped fuel medical progress.][ They conclude that "the boundary between legitimate practice … and the self-interest of chicanery must be abrogated" with medical and regulatory vigilance.][
Haber (2004) stated that "Despite increasing doubts about the efficacy of his operation, he continued to perform both human and animal operations to popular acclaim."] In 2005, Kahn stated that the work by Voronoff and others in the 1920s and 1930s was the basis for rejuvenation therapy, but that the therapies developed then "received widespread attention (including ridicule) in the popular press, were spread rapidly by practitioners of questionable training and ethical motivation, and finally and relatively quickly disappeared from common use".
In November 1991, ''The Lancet
''The Lancet'' is a weekly peer-reviewed general medical journal and one of the oldest of its kind. It is also the world's highest-impact academic journal. It was founded in England in 1823.
The journal publishes original research articles, ...
'' suggested that "the Medical Research Council should fund further studies on monkey glands."
Popular culture
As Voronoff's work became famous in the 1920s, it began to be featured in popular culture. By 1994, there were calls for a qualified apology from the orthodox medical establishment for dismissing Voronoff's work. In 1998, the sweeping popularity of Viagra
Sildenafil, sold under the brand name Viagra, among others, is a medication used to treat erectile dysfunction and pulmonary arterial hypertension. It is unclear if it is effective for treating sexual dysfunction in women. It is taken by ...
brought forth references to Voronoff in the popular press. By 2003, Voronoff's efforts in the 1920s reached trivia factoid
A factoid is either an invented or assumed statement presented as a fact, ''or'' a true but brief or trivial item of news or information.
The term was coined in 1973 by American writer Norman Mailer to mean a piece of information that becomes ac ...
status for newspapers.
" The Adventure of the Creeping Man" is a Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes () is a fictional detective created by British author Arthur Conan Doyle. Referring to himself as a " consulting detective" in the stories, Holmes is known for his proficiency with observation, deduction, forensic science and ...
short story by Arthur Conan Doyle, first published in March 1923 but set in 1903. In the story, an elderly professor is found to be regularity injecting himself with a substance called "extract of langur
The Colobinae or leaf-eating monkeys are a subfamily of the Old World monkey family that includes 61 species in 11 genera, including the black-and-white colobus, the large-nosed proboscis monkey, and the gray langurs. Some classifications spli ...
" for the purpose of rejuvenation. This has unexpected consequences for him.
The song "Monkey-Doodle-Doo", written by Irving Berlin and featured in the Marx Brothers
The Marx Brothers were an American family comedy act that was successful in vaudeville, on Broadway, and in motion pictures from 1905 to 1949. Five of the Marx Brothers' thirteen feature films were selected by the American Film Institute (AFI) ...
film '' The Coconuts'', contains the line: "If you're too old for dancing/Get yourself a monkey gland". Strange-looking ashtrays 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
Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov ( rus, links=no, Михаил Афанасьевич Булгаков, p=mʲɪxɐˈil ɐfɐˈnasʲjɪvʲɪtɕ bʊlˈɡakəf; – 10 March 1940) was a Soviet writer, medical doctor, and playwright active in the fir ...
's novel ''Heart of a Dog
''Heart of a Dog'' (russian: links=no, italic=yes, Собачье сердце, Sobachye serdtse) is a novella by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of Bolshevism, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when commu ...
'', published in 1925. In the novel, Preobrazhensky implants human testicles and pituitary gland
In vertebrate anatomy, the pituitary gland, or hypophysis, is an endocrine gland, about the size of a chickpea and weighing, on average, in humans. It is a protrusion off the bottom of the hypothalamus at the base of the brain. The ...
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.
In his autobiography ''A Chef's Tale,'' Pierre Franey
Pierre Franey (January 13, 1921 – October 15, 1996) was a French chef, best known for his televised cooking shows and his "60 Minute Gourmet" column in ''The New York Times''.
Early years
Franey grew up in northern Burgundy, France. As ...
relates how when Voronoff dined at Le Pavillon in the 1940s, waiters would remark how "he looked like a monkey himself, with his exceptionally long fingers and slouching walk. They would laugh at him in the kitchen and imitate his walk for those of us (in the kitchen) who couldn't witness it ourselves."[Franey, Pierre (1994) ''A Chef's Tale: A Memoir of Food, France, and America.'' Alfred A. Knopf: New York. Page 94.]
Works by Voronoff
* Voronoff, Samuel. (1893) ''Essai sur les trèves morbides''. Paris: A. Maloine.
* Voronoff, Samuel (transl.). (1895) S. Bernheim et É. Laurent. ''Hystérie''. Paris: A. Maloine.
* Voronoff, Samuel. (1896) ''Études de gynécologie et de chirurgie générale''. Paris: A. Maloine.
* Voronoff, Samuel. (1899) ''Manuel pratique d'opérations gynécologiques''. Paris: O. Doin.
* Voronoff, Samuel. (1910) ''Feuillets de chirurgie et de gynécologie''. Paris: O. Doin et fils.
* 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
Notes and references
;Citations
;Bibliography
* Cooper, David K. C.; Lanza, Robert P. (April 28, 2003) ''Xeno: The Promise of Transplanting Animal Organs into Humans''. Publisher: Oxford University Press
* Hamilton, David. (1986) ''The Monkey Gland Affair''. Publisher: Chatto & Windus.
* Réal, Jean. (2001) ''Voronoff''. Publisher: Stock.
*
* Enzo Barnabà, Il sogno dell'eterna giovinezza, Formigine, Infinito, 2014. ().
See also
*Cosmic Movement
The Cosmic Movement was the organisation established by Max Théon around 1900, in Tlemcen, Algeria, at the instigation of his wife Alma Théon, whom he declared to be the moving spirit behind the group. Its journal was the ''Cosmic Review''. Oth ...
*Eugen Steinach
Eugen Steinach (28 January 1861 – 14 May 1944) was an Austrian physiologist and pioneer in endocrinology. Steinach played a significant role in discovering the relationship between sex hormones (estrogen and testosterone) and human physical iden ...
* Brown-Séquard Elixir At age 72, at a meeting of the Societie de Biologie in Paris in 1889, Brown-Séquard reported that hypodermic injection of a fluid prepared from the testicles of guinea pigs and dogs leads to rejuvenation
* Monkeygland sauce
* The Monkey Gland
* John R. Brinkley
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Voronoff, Serge
1866 births
1951 deaths
French eugenicists
French immunologists
French transplant surgeons
Emigrants from the Russian Empire to France
People from Voronezh
Jews from the Russian Empire