Serge Voronoff (July 10, 1866 to September 3, 1951) and Monkey Testis Transplantation
Alan D. Rogol, MD, Ph.D.
Voronoff, a French surgeon of Russian ancestry and a great self-promoter, sought to rejuvenate aging men by the transplantation (implantation) of testes from younger “subjects”. Given the paucity of human material, he stated “that the glands of monkeys…are the only ones that can furnish grafts which will find among human tissues the same conditions of life that they had originally” (Hamilton, Monkey Gland Affair). He set up his own monkey farm in Italy, and claimed to return 2 or 3 decades of “good life” to aging men. By the 1930’s this operation and that of Steinach (vas deferens ligation) declined, as objective data of success were lacking, discretionary spending declined during the Depression and pure androgens became available.