Introduction to Testosterone Chemistry of Testosterone Historical Significance
Prehistory and Religious Doctrine
-Jewish Circumcision
-Egyptian Fertility Statues found in pyramids
The Middle Ages
-Human Castration
-Serendipitous Discovery that the Testes effect behavior, emotion and overall health
1849-Arnold Berthold
-experimentation of castration on chickens
1889-French Physiologist, Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard
“Rejuvenating therapy for the body and mind”
1918- Leo L. Stanley, resident physician of San Quentin State Prison in California
transplanted testicles removed from recently executed prisoners into inmates: some of whom claimed that they recovered sexual potency
1927- Fred C. Koch, University of Chicago’s Professor of Physiologic Chemistry
In 1927, Koch and his student, Lemuel McGee, derived 20mg of a substance from a supply of 40 pounds of buffalo testicles that, when administered to castrated roosters, pigs and rats, remasculinized them.
1934- Ernst Laquer
purified testosterone from bovine testicles
1935- Adolph Butenandt and Leopold Ruzicka
-funded by pharmaceuticals research labs in Germany and Switzerland respectively, joint synthesis
-the two share the 1939 Nobel Peace Prize
The early 1930s 1950s “The Golden Age of Steroid Chemistry”
Research proved that this newly synthesized compound — testosterone — was a potent multiplier of muscle, strength, and wellbeing.