Sengoopta Chandak
School of History, Classics and Archaeology, Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, Bloomsbury, London, UK WC1E 7HX.
Endeavour. 2003;27(3):122-6. doi: 10.1016/s0160-9327(03)00102-9.
In the 1920s, research on the endocrine glands--especially the sex glands--was widely expected to lead to revolutionary new ways of improving human life. The medical marketplace was crowded with glandular techniques to revitalize the aged. 'Monkey glands' apart, the Austrian physiologist Eugen Steinach's simple, vasectomy-like operation was perhaps the most popular of these. Steinach was one of the leading endocrine researchers of the early 20th century and the Steinach Operation was based on rigorous laboratory research. It was much more than a simple scientific error, and its history shows us how early endocrine research was shaped by broader social and cultural forces.
在20世纪20年代，人们普遍期望对内分泌腺——尤其是性腺——的研究能够带来改善人类生活的革命性新方法。医疗市场上充斥着各种使老年人恢复活力的腺体治疗技术。除了“猴腺疗法”，奥地利生理学家尤金·施泰纳赫的类似输精管切除术的简单手术可能是其中最受欢迎的一种。施泰纳赫是20世纪初顶尖的内分泌研究人员之一，施泰纳赫手术是基于严格的实验室研究。这远不止是一个简单的科学错误，其历史向我们展示了早期内分泌研究是如何受到更广泛的社会和文化力量影响的。
