Oophorectomy at that time was used to treat conditions in women including hysteria and anorexia and anxiety and even nymphomania.

In the late 1880s the ovary was thought to be part of the nervous system. Thyroxine from sheep given to patients with hypothyroidism, again in the late 1880s had a remarkable effect in women with hypothyroidism because of the longer half-life of thyroxine. His reported marked improvement in strength and stamina was a placebo effect because of the shorter half-life of testosterone. Later in the late 1880s Brown-Séquard, the famous French neurologist, reported at the French Royal Society injecting himself with a mixture of the bloods from the testes of dogs and guinea pigs. He did not recognize the importance of his observation. In the late 1840s Berthold a German physiologist in Göttingen experimented on capons showing that if he removed their testes and transplanted them into the abdomen, where they regained their blood supply, the effects of castration were not seen. Popes did not come out of this covered in glory and the last papal castrato was singing in the Sistine Chapel choir in the early 1900s.

We know that removal of the testes before puberty has irreversible affects and that in 16th and 17th centuries these were exploited for music. Perhaps we should start with testosterone and the effects of castration. However although some of the discoveries in the last 3≤00 years have been amazing, some of the wrong turns have exhibited opportunism and quackery. We all know that endocrinology is the most amazing specialty.

Fantastical world of hormones bbc