Science: Rejuvenation

In Berlin, last week, Professor Eugen Steinach, medical Ponce de Leon, announced his possible discovery of a glandular fountain of youth. Injecting pituitary serum into docile, doddering rats, he noticed that they grew hair, an appetite, and sprightliness.

Rejuvenator Steinach had previously sought his elixir in the germinal glands, which he now claims have a secretive alliance with the pituitary gland. That small, oval, reddish-gray body, appended to the brain, is made up of two separately active lobes. The rear one exudes a valuable drug, which has been ingeniously injected to speed heartbeat, to increase blood pressure, or to make muscles contract. It is used in cases of surgical shock, in obstetrics, after abdominal surgery.

Sex and body growth are influenced by the front pituitary lobe. Overactivity of the lobe causes sexual precocity, great stature, large hands and feet, culminating in the giant of the circus. Underactivity causes sexual retardation, small hands and feet, small fat bodies culminating in the true dwarf. Doubtless Dr. Steinach fed extracts of the anterior lobe to his rats. Normal people gradually growing old will take another look at the circus side shows produced by pituitary glands run riot, before they try to stop Nature’s course with Dr. Steinach’s serum.