Procedure intended to restore youthfulness to men and women. Throughout the 19th century, many physiologists and anatomists believed that secondary sexual characteristics the deepening of the voice and the appearance of facial hair in males and the development of breasts in females were caused by an internal secretion poured into the blood by the sex glands. In 1889, French physiologist Charles-Edouard Brown-Sequard announced the discovery of the potent substance, an extract from the male sex glands. Having inoculated himself with the extract, he claimed that he had renewed his youthfulness. However, colleagues could not reproduce his results, and Brown-Sequard soon passed from the scene permanently.
Other doctors followed Brown-Sequard’s lead. In 1903 two French biologists announced that they had discovered the secretion responsible for male secondary sexual characteristics and located it in a part of the male sex gland. Tying off the tubes leading from the gland, they said, would stimulate this portion into producing more of the secretion. This idea was picked up by Austrian physician Eugen Steinach. Through the first few decades of the 20th century doctors on both sides of the Atlantic offered the Steinach rejuvenation operation for aging men. Mean¬ while the basic idea underlying it, that secondary sex characteristics are related to secretions of the sex glands, was destroyed by further research, including the observation of changes in men born without sex organs.