PES Trivia, at Your Fingertips
These tidbits were originally published in our 2014 President’s newsletters.
November 2014 – submitted by Del Fisher
John Eager Howard, Lawson Wilkins, and Walter Fleischmann reported early attempts to stimulate growth in adolescent “pituitary dwarfs” via daily oral or parenteral administration of 25 mg of methyltestosterone for “over one year.” They observed increased sexual development, increased growth rate, elevated BMR, and marked creatinuria. A similar effect was observed in two females given testosterone along with 1 mg diethylstilbestrol daily. [“The metabolic and growth effects of various androgens in sexually premature dwarfs” -Transactions of the Association of American Physicians, Volume LVII , 212-215, 1942]
October 2014 – submitted by Alan Rogol
The 1947 Nobel prizes in physiology and medicine went to Carl and Gerty Cori (née Radnitz) ‘for their discovery of the course of the catalytic conversion of glycogen’ [Cori cycle] and to Bernardo Houssay, an Argentinian physician who began his studies in various combinations of pancreatectomized, hypophysectomized, adrenalectomized, and hormone-treated dogs in 1924 ‘for his discovery of the part played by the hormones of the anterior pituitary lobe in the metabolism of sugar.
September 2014 – submitted by History Committee
Two years after Yalow and Berson described the first hormone radioimmunoassay, for insulin, in 1960 (JCI 39:1157), Utiger, Parker, and Daughaday reported in the same journal their successful radioimmunoassay for human growth hormone. [Studies of human growth hormone. I. A radioimmunoassay for human growth hormone (1962; 41:254-61)]
August 2014 – submitted by Del Fisher
The last paper describing the outcome of children with congenital hypothyroidism before the introduction of newborn screening in 1975, was by Salvatore Raiti and George Newns (Early diagnosis and its relation to mental prognosis, Arch Dis Childhood 1971; 46:692-694). They were able to measure IQ in 56 of 141 cases. Three fourths of those treated before 3 months of age, but only ~40% of those treated later had IQ’s above 90, consistent with the report from Hopkins in 1957 in the largest series up to that time. [Smith DW, Blizzard RM, Wilkins L., The mental prognosis of hypothyroidism of infancy and childhood: A review of 128 cases – Pediatrics 1957; 19:1011-22]
July 2014 – submitted by Jadranka Popovic
The first description of a Turner Syndrome karyotype and correlation with phenotype (including the absence of secondary sexual characteristics and being “backward in school”) and other laboratory analyses was by CE Ford et al. in: A Sex-Chromosome Anomaly in a Case of Gonadal Dysgenesis (Turner’s Syndrome) Lancet 1959;1:711-713.
June 2014 – submitted by Arlan Rosenbloom
The first description of precocious puberty with hypothyroidism (including regular menses beginning at age 5 years) was an elegant case report in 1905. [FW Kendle; Case of precocious puberty in a female cretin; Brit Med J 1905; 1:245] www.bmj.com/content/1/2301/246