Serge Voronoff

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Serge Voronoff : biography

c. July 10, 1866 – September 3, 1951

By 2003, Voronoff’s efforts in the 1920s reached trivia factoid status for newspapers.mX (February 27, 2003) It’s true. Section: News; Page 7. (printing, "Russian transplant pioneer Serge Voronoff made headlines in 1920 by grafting monkey testicles onto human males.") However, as recently as 2005, Voronoff’s work in the 1920s and 1930s was noted for setting the basis for the modern anti-aging strategy of replacing hormones—the internally secreted substances that decline with age—to regain the vitality and physical attributes associated with youth.Kahn, Arnold. (February 1, 2005) Journals of Gerontology, Series A, Biological Science & Medical Science Regaining lost youth: the controversial and colorful beginnings of hormone replacement therapy in aging. Volume 60; Issue 2; Page 142. Such practices are currently advocated by alternative medicine organizations such as the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.

Falling out of favour

Voronoff’s experiments ended following pressure from a skeptical scientific community and a change in public opinion.Illman, John. (August 4, 1998) Rocky Mountain News Pre-viagra men given monkey cells in the 1930s, Russian doctor grafted glands. Section: News/National/International; Page 26A. (from The Observer 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. Interestingly, this means the many patients who received the surgery and praised Voronoff were "improved" solely by the placebo effect.

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. 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, Dr. 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 and Portsmouth, although it eventually fell out of favor.

Death and burial

Voronoff died on September 3, 1951, in Lausanne, Switzerland, from complications following a fall.Hamilton, David. (1986) The Monkey Gland Affair. Publisher: Chatto & Windus. ISBN 0-7011-3021-0 While recovering from a broken leg, Voronoff suffered chest difficulties, thought either to be pneumonia or possibly a blood clot from his leg that moved to his lungs.

As Voronoff was no longer respected, few newspapers ran obituaries, and those that did acted as if Voronoff had always been ridiculed for his beliefs. For example, The New York Times, once one of his supporters, spelt his name incorrectly and stated that "few took his claims seriously".

Voronoff is buried in the Russian section of the Caucade Cemetery in Nice.

Personal life

Voronoff married his first wife, Marguerite Barbe, in 1897; she died in 1910. He married his second, Evelyn Bostwick in 1920 (Bostwick’s daughter from a previous marriage was Joe Carstairs). Evelyn translated into English Voronoff’s book Life: a means of restoring vital energy and prolinging life. 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 da Foz upon Voronoff’s death.