Abstract
Since the male sex hormone testosterone∗ has become generally available, the current literature abounds in reports of its action in both the male and the female vertebrate. Among the various androgenic substances thus far isolated, testosterone most nearly resembles progesterone, hence in its action upon the reproductive tract it might also be expected to simulate that ovarian hormone.
Some experiments carried out at the Carnegie Laboratory corroborated the findings of others that testosterone causes a mucification of the vaginal mucosa and no cornification, and that in the monkey growth of the mammary tree and production of alveoli are stimulated by it. Markee (unpublished), working in the same laboratory in 1935–6, noted that testosterone, injected with estrin (Amniotin Squibb), antagonized the action of the latter in producing a reduction in the size of intraocular endometrial transplants, an effect which progesterone does not bring about. Hartman found that testosterone, like progesterone, prevented the appearance of an expected menstruation in the monkey, but, unlike progesterone, failed to cause any progravid changes in the endometrium.
From these experimentally determined facts it seemed theoretically possible that the injection of testosterone into a pregnant animal might well prevent parturition or abortion, even though the androgen might not replace progestin in other respects. Thus, in the rat, the abortion which always occurs after castration of the pregnant female, might well be prevented by testosterone and the injections so adjusted that delivery occurred at term. Or again, injection of the androgen towards the end of a normal pregnancy might be expected to postpone parturition, as happens with progesterone (King).
The results of 18 of the experiments carried out along these lines are recorded in Table I, from which the following conclusions may be deduced:
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.