Monkey Service Stations to Supply Human “Spare Parts”

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 672, 25 May 1929, Page 18

Monkey Service Stations to Supply Human “Spare Parts”

MfTnih HAT is man’s age? RePWWWJ cently a man died at the w Wt) a & e 110. Another man in Scotland died at Bli 140. The gland operation is too young and our lives are too short to test its effect on longevity (writes Voronoff, whose monkey-gland and rejuvenation theories have attracted world-wide attention). We can test the effect of transplantation on animals. The operation seems to increase longevity by 25 percent. But youthful vigour and efficiency are prolonged almost until the period of dissolution. A long and vigorous active period is followed by a brief period of enfee.blement and old age. The transplantation gives man more vigour to resist illness. Most people die prematurely because their weakened bodies cannot ward off the attack of micro-organisms. They succumb to influenza, to pneumonia, etc., before their race is run. Under ordinary circumstances the operation should not be postponed beyond the age of 60. After 60, no matter how hale a man’s appearance may be, the downward trend begins. Old age inevitably starts at 60. The principal effect of my operation is increased brain power and in-

creased physiological vigour. The percentage of failure is small. Hardly more than three to four per cent, of all transplantations fail to increase the brain and body vigour. By my new method, I have succeeded in implanting the new glands in such a way that it functions as part of the system anrl continues to remain active for five* or six years. After that time the operation can be repeated. “Some time ago I operated upon a

Spanish physician, who permitted me to take out the gland again after three years. This enabled me to demonstrate before the Society of Biology that after that Interval the gland was functioning perfectly. “I do not try to he wiser than God. The gland must he placed where the blood circulates freely. It is part of my technique to irritate the region where I plant it to promote circulation before implantation. Formerly, I employed half a monkey gland for the implantations;. Now, I split it into four parts to facilitate the growth of blood vessels. “The operation is feasible in women, but my cases are few because it is more complicated. Nature has endowed women with a very complicated organism, and the implantation of glands in women’s cases constitutes a major operation. I have performed the operation successfully, however, in several cases. In fact, one woman, who is well known in the Anglo-Ameri-can colony in Paris, was* rejuvenated by me when she was 68. “During the war, the French Government placed at my disposal a hospital where I substituted monkey bones for human bones. Many a French soldie-r goes without crutches today because I was able to supply a monkey shin-bone to take the place of a human one that was shot to pieces.

The special military hospital 197 placed under my supervision by the French Government enabled me to prove that it is possible to borrow diverse organs, not only sex glands, from the monkeys. I saved a 14-year-dd boy from idiocy by transplanting upon him, in 1913, the thyroid gland of a monkey. The operation was entirely successful, and the lad. was able to serve in the war.

“The ape is a depot for human spare parts. Humanity needs ape depots more than repair shops with spare parts for automobiles. I foresee a time when monkey service stations will be as numerous a.s Ford service stations are today in the United States. They are a reservoir of human strength, these ancestors of ours!

“The French Government, in recognition of the success of my experiments, has forbidden the destructive hunting of monkeys. Monkeys are preserved for medical purposes in all French colonial possessions. King Alfonso of Spain and King Albert of Belgium have promised me to promulgate similar laws to safeguard the monkey supply. “Africa especially is predestined to replenish the world, if we can obtain enough primitive denizens of the tree-tops. The monkey supply will be greater if we succeed in domesticating the animal.”