"Biohacking" and the Monkey Gland Cocktail

 

This is the “Monkey Gland,” a cocktail invented in the 1920s. It is made of equal parts gin and fresh orange juice, with a bar spoon full of grenadine and another of absinthe. 

OK, that sounds interesting if a bit odd (orange and absinthe?). But what’s with that name? 

“Monkey glands” were kind of a 1920s meme. The glands in question were testes. And the reason they were all the rage back then? Because a French doctor of Russian origin named Serge Voronoff was removing the testes from chimpanzees and transplanting slices of them into human men’s scrotums.

Okaaaay. Why, exactly? Because Dr. Voronoff claimed that this would extend the men’s lives. It would give them added mental and physical vigor, allowing them to work longer hours with greater concentration! It would reverse signs of aging, improve muscle tone, perhaps even cure the need for glasses!

In other words, this was an opening salvo of the techbro era of “biohacking.” Long before wearable fitness trackers and “adaptogen” teas,  cryochambers and blood plasma infusions, there was “monkey gland implantation.”

Mind you, this was before testosterone was discovered—that wouldn’t happen until 1935. But humans had known for millennia that castration prevented puberty in humans and changed the behavior of animals. So the scientific belief in the early years of the 20th century was that the testes themselves created “vitality”. It was an era of enthusiastic experimentation, with scientists transplanting kidneys and thymus glands between animals of the same species, and performing xenotransplants between different species. Doctors were experimenting with transplanting pig kidneys into humans suffering from kidney failure. None of these had succeeded, but the hope was that this was because the human patients were just too ill to survive such serious surgery.

Enter Dr. Voronoff. His belief was that if he operated on healthy patients instead of sick ones, and performed minor surgeries instead of dangerously invasive ones, then animal grafts would be successful. And as an excellent entrepreneur, he was sure that there would be a large market of wealthy men who would eagerly pay dearly to have their youth restored, their strength boosted, and their cognitive powers sharpened. 

Voronoff was right! Well-to-do patients rushed in—led by the “captains of industry,” the techbros of the day. Voronoff performed his first “monkey gland graft” in 1920, and by 1922, trappers in Africa could not catch and ship chimpanzees to France in numbers great enough to meet the vast demand. There was a huge buzz about monkey gland treatments. “Great men” of the era-–the celebrities and influencers and early-adopting CEOs of the time—talked about monkey glad grafts wherever they met. Soon there were songs about monkey glands and stories about monkey glands and the Monkey Gland Cocktail came into being. The practice had become a viral meme!

But you know what else it was? Utterly ineffective. We now see it as obvious that the xenotransplanted tissue would be rejected and swiftly destroyed by the human body’s immune system. The only reason so many men said they felt that their vigor was restored and their strength increased was because of the placebo effect, and perhaps the cachet of being viewed as one of the elite supermen the treatments were supposedly producing.

It’s easy to laugh, but don’t think that we have somehow advanced beyond such practices and beliefs. If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably heard of Bryan Johnson, the man in his 40s who claims to have restored his body to that of an athlete in his 20s, through such “biohacking” practices as monthly 1-liter blood plasma transfusions (one coming from his son), waking up at 4:30 AM, lying under blue lights, lying under red lights, intermittent fasting, taking 70 supplements daily, eating a vegan diet, wearing a brainwave-tracking "Flow Helmet," using an "iTear100," a device that prevents dry eyes--and oh yes, getting Botox and fillers and plastic surgeries and dying his hair, but he doesn’t put those on his website. 

Or consider the “looksmaxxing” community of today. You may with good reason roll your eyes at the fad for “bonesmashing”—whacking at your chin and cheekbones on the theory that this will cause microfractures which will then work like plastic surgery, depositing additional bone to give you more prominent cheekbones and chin. (Actual plastic surgeons warn that while this will not work, it is in fact dangerous.) But there’s a lot more to the looksmaxxing fad, and one interesting example is that looksmaxxing circles and sites and influencers are constantly chattering about and promoting “peptides.” 

In actual scientific terms, a peptide is a short chain of amino acids—the building blocks of all proteins. In looksmaxxing circles, “peptides” are basically any chemicals or drugs used to try to achieve maximum masculine aesthetic appeal--anything allowing you to go mog your peers. So steroids are “peptides” and ADHD drugs are “peptides” and sunless tanning drugs are “peptides” and growth hormone is a “peptide,” even though none of those meet the definition of a peptide (though some are made up of groups of peptides). 

That said, there are actual peptides—small chains of amino acids—that are the subject of endless speculation in looksmaxxing circles. And there are hundreds of websites selling these, listing them as intended for scientific research purposes only and not for human consumption, to buyers who promptly consume them. One of these is called “testagen,” and it might as well be called “monkey gland.” It was so named by a Russian doctor, Vladimir Khavinson, who claimed to have found in peptides the secret to extending life and vitality, and who gave a series of preparations he concocted that were said to contain such peptides evocative names: Cortexin to supposedly boost brain function, Vitaprost to enliven the prostate, and Testagen to boost “male performance” and energy.

The actual peptide Khavinson named “testagen” is just four amino acids long. But the preparation "Testagen" (with a capital T) is instead an extract of ground organs. That was true of all the preparations Khavinson produced, and provided in mass quantities to the militaries of the USSR and later the Russian Federation. Cortexin was made from ground up animal brains, which sounds like a great way to get a prion disease! Testagen, interestingly, seems to have been a preparation of dried ground thyroid rather than testes—the same preparation used to treat low thyroid conditions at the time Khavinson devised Testagen. In people whose thyroid hormone levels are normal instead of low, boosting thyroid levels medically causes hyperthyroidism, which is a medical disorder. It manifests in rapid heartrate, anxiety, tremors, sweating, sleeplessness, weight loss, and diarrhea—but with them a feeling of high energy, which was deemed worth the side effects by Khavinson and his military sponsors.

Anyway: Testagen was made from ground up pig thyroids. Today, both this same preparation and the peptide Khavinson said it contained are sold on a vast array of peptide-peddling sites that cater to looksmaxxers. And the claimed benefits are the same ones Voronoff bragged would result from monkey gland grafts a century ago. Increased vigor! Restored youth! Enhanced masculinity! All thanks to the latest scientific developments!

In truth, sticking a slice of chimpanzee testis into your scrotum is a bad idea, and will not hack your biology and cause you to become superior to your fellow men. Also a very bad idea: buying unknown preparations from internet sites that claim they will boost your testosterone and thyroid function, giving you stamina and energy and enhanced “male performance,” accompanied by a warning not to consume them as their effects have not been tested—and then consuming or injecting them. 

We are just dumb monkeys smugly falling for the same snake oil over and over.

So, the 1920s had the Monkey Gland Cocktail. I guess a century later the time has come to invent the Testagen Cocktail! What do you think belongs in the recipe?