The Goat-gland Transplantation As Originated and Successfully Performed by J. R. Brinkley, M. D., of Milford, Kansas, U. S. A., in Over 600 Operations Upon Men and Women

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AUTHOR’S PREFACE

Though dealing exactly with a surgical subject, this book is a layman’s word to laymen. It is an attempt to say to the general public a few things about this amazing work of Dr. J. R. Brinkley, of Milford, Kansas, which he is debarred from saying for himself in this simple form. He has under consideration a book of his own covering the subject of Goat-Gland Transplantation, his experiments, successes, failures, theories, and conclusions, which will probably be issued during the winter of 1922, and in that book he expects to treat his subject exhaustively with full medical and surgical detail, in a manner acceptable to the medical profession. But, in the meantime, no satisfactory effort has been made to tell the story to the general public, except in the fragmentary form of occasional newspaper notices. The author feels that the chief interest in this matter abides with the patient rather than with the practitioner, or, if not the chief interest, at least an equal interest. It seems proper, therefore, that the subject should be briefly dealt with at this time, while it is yet in its infancy, in such a manner that the general public may grasp the essentials of what is being done in America in this new application of endocrinology. Some attention is paid to the pioneer work of Dr. Frank Lydston of Chicago in the transplanting of human glands into human beings, but rather by way of emphasizing the fact that Dr. Brinkley, with the choice of human, monkey, goat, or sheep glands before him, chose the goat-glands in preference to any other for his field of experiment and operation, and has never for a moment regretted his choice, or seen any reason to alter it.

Without any wish to enter upon a controversy, the author is impelled to take some notice of the statement of Dr. Serge Voronoff of Paris, who, during his recent visit to the United States, announced that he pinned his faith almost exclusively to the glands of the anthropoid apes as most suitable for transplantation into human beings, while he lamented the natural scarcity of obtainable material. Dr. Voronoff is credited with having performed over 150 transplantations upon rams, but none whatever of goat-glands upon human beings, and not more than two or three of simian glands upon human beings. His statement, therefore, that successful transplantation of the glands of the goat into a human being is “impossible, and cannot succeed,” is empirical, and entirely unsupported by any experience of his own in the matter. Against it, and completely confuting it, we set the clear conclusions of Dr. Brinkley, backed by his unequalled record of over 600 successful transplants of goat-glands into men and women, during the past three years. Since there is no other human being who has had experience sufficient in this matter upon which he may justly found an opinion, it seems to the author that only one man, Dr. Brinkley himself, is qualified to speak at all, and until members of the medical profession here and in Europe have mastered Dr....