Some Medical Aspects of Old Age: Being the Linacre lecture, 1922, St. John's college, CambridgeRolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir
Science
Some Medical Aspects of Old Age: Being the Linacre lecture, 1922, St. John's college, Cambridge
Rolleston, Humphry Davy, Sir
Geriatrics; Linacre lecture, St. John's college, Cambridge; Longevity
Kenneth Walker’s[111] observation that the interstitial cells of the
testis show a gradual diminution in number from the age of about
30 years, might be quoted in favour of the contention that atrophy
of these cells plays a part in the production of senescence. In
addition there are the dramatic experiments on rats carried out by
Eugen Steinach,[112] who was formerly Professor of Physiology in
the German University of Prague and since 1912 has been Director of
the Physiological Section of the Experimental Biological Institute
at Vienna. He found that in apathetic senile rats with degenerative
changes in the thyroid, pituitary, and interstitial cells ligature
or section of one vas deferens causes atrophy of the seminal tubes
and active growth of the interstitial cells; the hormone thus
provided stimulates the thyroid, pituitary, and brain, and the rat
is rejuvenated, the sexual instincts and emotions become active, and
the rat may have offspring; when relapse into senility occurs, a
repetition of the operation on the other side brings about a further
rejuvenation; and later the same result is effected by grafting the
testes of a young rat. In this way life is definitely prolonged. This
procedure has been advocated in man with some success by Steinach;
Lichtenstern of Vienna, who has done 36 such operations and 21
implantations on account of senile changes, has not encountered any bad
results, but admits that he has not been uniformly successful, and that
the number of cases is not sufficient to justify a final conclusion.
From observation in Vienna Benjamin[113] estimated that the operation
was followed by no results at all in from 10 to 20 per cent of the
cases. Obviously a considerable time must elapse before any decision as
to prolongation of life can thus be assured.
In the autumn of 1921 a man aged 70 was advertised to speak
at the Albert Hall on “How I was made 20 years younger by the
Method of Dr. Steinach of Vienna,” but he died on the morning
of the day from pneumonia (Benjamin[113]), the necropsy not
revealing, so it is said, any trace of an operation; the
hypertrophy of the interstitial cells, however, may have been
induced by the exposure of the testes to _x_-rays.
Steinach’s observations naturally aroused great interest and have
been repeated with discordant results by a number of investigators:
Simmonds[114] and Tiedje[115] have failed to confirm the occurrence
of the changes in the testes after vasectomy; and Romeis[116] and
Marinesco[117] have not obtained the striking clinical results
described by Steinach. Levy Lenz and Schmidt,[118] however, report
rejuvenation in 23 out of 24 cases of vasectomy, and Voronoff
encouraging results from implantation of chimpanzee’s testes into man.
But Marinesco compares Steinach’s published results with those of
Brown-Séquard.
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