Serge Abrahamovitch Voronoff (; c. July 10, 1866September 3, 1951) was a French surgeon of Russian origin who gained fame for his practice of xenotransplantation of monkey testicle tissues onto the testicles of men, purportedly as an anti-aging therapy while working in France in the 1920s and '30s.
His practice made him quite wealthy. However, his theories remained controversial throughout his life, and he was often ridiculed by medical professionals over his claims. According to one contemporary newspaper, he was famously known as the "monkey gland man."Monkey Gland Man Dies, Buried Italy, TimesDaily Ultimately almost all his scientific work was discredited.
Personal life Serge (Samuel) Voronoff was born to a Jewish family in the village Shekhman, Tambov Governorate in Russia (now Tambov Oblast) shortly before July 10, 1866, the date of his circumcision in a synagogue. His father Abram Veniaminovich Voronov was a former cantonistVoronoff Called to Turkey to Improve Breed of Sheep Through Gland Grafting (Jewish Telegraph Agency) and a distiller; his mother was Rachel-Esther Lipsky.Marguerite BARBE et Samuel Serge VORONOFFThe Voronoff FamilyArrêté du 24 octobre 2001 portant apposition de la mention « Mort en déportation» sur les actes et jugements déclaratifs de décès (Voronoff's brothers Alexandre and Georges) At the age of 18, after graduating from the Voronezh Realschule, he emigrated to France, where he studied medicine. In 1895 at the age of 29, Voronoff became a naturalized French citizen. Voronoff was a student of French surgeon, biologist, eugenicist, and Nobel Prize recipient Alexis Carrel, from whom he learnt surgical techniques of transplantation. Between 1896 and 1910, he worked in Egypt, studying the retarding effects that castration had on eunuchs, observations that would lead to his later work on rejuvenation.
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 da Foz upon Voronoff's death.
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. 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.
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, once one of his supporters, spelt his name incorrectly and stated that "few took his claims seriously". On the other hand, TimesDaily was more positive, calling him a "famed 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.
Monkey-gland transplant work
In the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, trends in xenotransplantation included the work of Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard.Musitelli, S. (June 1, 2004) The Aging Male Welcome born-again Dr Faust! Volume 7; Issue 2; Page 170.Bynum, W. F. (June 30, 2006) The Times Higher Education Supplement Dig for gland of hope and glory;Books;History of science. Section: Features; Page 29. In 1889, Brown-Séquard injected himself under the skin with extracts from ground-up dog and guinea pig testicles. 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 glands from chimpanzees to humans with thyroid deficiencies. He moved on to transplanting the testicles of executed criminals into millionaires, but, when demand outstripped supply, he turned to using monkey testicle tissue instead.Winegar, Karin. (February 5, 1989) Star Tribune Youth is a disease that time cures. - Goethe. Section: Variety; Page 01E.
In 1917, Voronoff began being funded by Evelyn Bostwick, a wealthy American socialite and the daughter of Jabez Bostwick. The money allowed him to begin transplantation experiments on animals. Bostwick also acted as his laboratory assistant at the Collège de France 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.
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 baboons were implanted inside the patient's scrotum, 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.Time magazine (July 30, 1923) Voronoff and Steinach.
In his book Rejuvenation by Grafting (1925),Voronoff, Serge. (1925) Rejuvenation by grafting. Publisher: Adelphi. Translation edited by Fred. F. Imianitoff. ASIN B000OSQH5K 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. He claims that 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.
Voronoff's monkey-gland treatment was in vogue in the 1920s.Ferris, Paul. (December 2, 1973) The New York Times The history of cell therapy and its use in modern clinics.Klotzko, Arlene Judith. (May 21, 2004) Financial Times Science matters. Section: FT Weekend Magazine - Of All Things. The poet E. E. Cummings sang of a "famous doctor who inserts monkeyglands in millionaires", and Chicago surgeon Max Thorek, 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 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.) In 1922, Voronoff told the Chicago Tribune that his services were in such high demand that "only the scarcity of chimpanzees" is slowing him down: "He is using chimpanzees faster than they can be caught in Africa.""Expects to Replace All Vital Organs: Dr Voronoff Announces Starting New Discovery in Substitutions from Chimpanzees", New York Times (June 20, 1922). This article reprinted information drawn from the Chicago Times.
By the early 1930s, over 500 men had been treated in France by his rejuvenation technique (including Voronoff's younger brother GeorgesGeorges Voronoff (1873—1943)), and thousands more around the world, such as in a special clinic set up in Algiers.Common, Laura. (April 25, 2000) The Medical Post Great balls of fire: from prehistory, men have tried implants and extracts from macho animals to cure impotence, but it was only relatively recently that they began to understand why they did so. Noteworthy people who had the surgery included Harold McCormick, chairman of the board of International Harvester Company.Grossman, Ron. (March 31, 1985) Chicago Tribune Lost lake shore drive: Mourning an era; Mansions of rich and famous yield to giant condos. Section: Real estate; Page 1.Jones, David. (December 11, 1986) The Times Christmas Books: Believe it or not - Adam and Eve to bent spoons / Review of books on beliefs. To cope with the demand for the operation, Voronoff set up his own monkey farm in Ventimiglia, on the Italian Riviera, employing a former circus-animal keeper to run it. French-born U.S. coloratura soprano Lily Pons was a frequent visitor to the farm.A Time article from 1940 says Lily Pons: "was kissed by an ape at Dr. Voronoff's monkey farm near Menton, France". Another Time article, this time from 1936, says "Singer Lily Pons went to see the monkeys kept by Menton's famed Rejuvenating Dr. Serge Voronoff, got too close to a cage, was soundly bussed by an ape named Rastus." 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 monkey gland secret. Section: Features; Page 15.
Voronoff's later work included transplants of monkey ovaries into women. He also tried the reverse experiment, transplanting a human ovary into a female monkey, and then tried to inseminate the monkey with human sperm. The notoriety of this experiment resulted in the novel Nora, la guenon devenue femme (Nora, the Monkey Turned Woman) by Félicien Champsaur. 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.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. 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.