Hormones of Life
Endocrinology, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Dream of a Remedy for Sterility, 1930–1970
Christer Nordlund
“…considers the realm of reproductive endocrinology development and hormone therapies and reveals the process of research and development as a whole. Any serious medical library needs this history, reminding of how the modern pharmaceutical industry developed.”—California Bookwatch, October 2011
CONTENTS
Foreword
Introduction
Premises and Questions
The New Physiology Before the Arrival of the New Biology
A Controversial Issue
Artifact Biography and Network Analysis
Consultation, Procuration, Standardization and Mediation
Sources and Scope
Outline
Tradition
Hormones and Hormone Therapy: Historical Background
Internal Secretion and Organotherapy
From Organotherapy to Endocrinology
Sex Hormones in Focus
New Methods of Production and Quality Control
Gonadotropin or Gonadotropins?
Axel Westman, Endocrinology, and the Population Question
Endocrinology and "Modern" Gynecology
Infertility as Endocrinological Problem
Population Policy and Sterility
Endocrinology as Public Science
Lion of the North: Leo and the First Hormone Drugs
The Birth of a Business
Leo's First Urine Collection Campaign
Leo's Wandering Hormone Lab
Innovation
Inventing Gonadex
The Second World War: A Turning Point for the Swedish Pharmaceutical Industry
Investing in a "Line of Hormones"
The Dream of a Pure Gonadotropin
The Development of "New Physex"
Registering Gonadex
Leos' Second Urine Collection Campaign
Launching Gonadex
Leo's Advertising Campaign
Selling Gonadex
A Conference for the Press
The Image of Hormonal Medicine as a Remedy for Sterility in the Press, Part I
The Reception of Gonadex
Reaction of the Medical Profession
Dr. Waldemar Gårdlund's Complaint
Hormones and Dreams
Gonadex and its Prospective Users
Verdict of the National Pharmaceutical Laboratory
"We Have Made Fools of Ourselves, Not Only in Front of Swedish Pharmacists and Physicians But the Whole World"
Development
New Gonadex
Shake-Up at the Women's Clinic
Hormone Therapy for Better or Worse
At the Crossroads
Making "New Gonadex"
The Royal Caroline Hospital Takes Over the Hormone Laboratory
More Than Gonadex
Axel Westman's Bovine Pituitary Implant
Carl Axel Gemzell's Human Pituitary Extract
Gonadotropin from Urine—One More Time
In the Shadow of Homogonal
Post-Menopausal Gonadotropin Put to the Test
Leo's Third Urine Collection Campaign
The Image of Hormonal Medicine as a Remedy for Sterility in the Press, Part II
"A Contract to Deliver hMG to the U.S.A. Has Been Signed"
Much Ado About Almost Nothing
Homogonal Launched in Sweden
Conclusion
Many Levels of Collaboration
The Identities of Gonadex
The New Physiology and the New Biology
Notes
Sources and Literature
name index
May 2011, 307 pp., illustrated, paperback, 978-0-88135-475-1, $34.95
© 2012 Watson Publishing International LLC