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Diethylstilbestrol and Infertility: The Past, the Present, and the Revelance for the Future

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Technology and Infertility

Abstract

“It is difficult to call to mind any subject upon which more rubbish has been written than the sex hormones. This is very largely the result of the general public’s desire for the maintenance of youth and all that it implies, together with the successful exploitation of this trait by commercial firms.” In 1939, 5 years after making this remark, Charles Dodds was knighted for his key role in the synthesis of sex hormones. In 1932 he wrote that oestrin had been seriously recommended for all types of menstrual disorders, for every form of insanity, for the treatment of vascular disease in men, and for hemophilia. He commented that sex hormones were so popular that it was only the difficulty of obtaining them that prevented their use in every condition from simple hives to megalomania.

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Authors
  1. Susan M. Fisher
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  2. Roberta J. Apfel
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Harvard Medical School, USA

    Machelle M. Seibel M.D.

  2. Faulkner Centre for Reproductive Medicine, Faulkner Hospital, Boston, MA, 02130, USA

    Machelle M. Seibel M.D.  & Judith Bernstein R.N., M.S.  & 

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Fisher, S.M., Apfel, R.J. (1993). Diethylstilbestrol and Infertility: The Past, the Present, and the Revelance for the Future. In: Seibel, M.M., Bernstein, J. (eds) Technology and Infertility. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9205-7_44

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-9205-7_44

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