| Summary: | In 1935, Butenandt and Ruzicka received the Nobel Prize for synthesizing testosterone from cholesterol. Over the next few years, testosterone was used therapeutically by several clinicians, especially in Germany. However, with the outbreak of the Second World War, international scientific research was effectively brought to an end. Using testosterone extracted from postmortem material, workers at the clinic of the famous Danish surgeon Thorkild Rovsing were able to show as early as the First World War that the substance had beneficial effects on cardiovascular disease. Given that this particularly important chapter in medical history opened in Copenhagen, it is appropriate that testosterone treatment was taken up in the 1950s by Jens Meller. During the 35 years since then, he has gained enormous experience in treating cardiovascular disease and is amply qualified to review the role testosterone has played in the more than ten thousand patients he has treated, most of them successfully. Many have even been saved the experience of amputation. Drawing on authoritative sources and expert opinion in the fields of biochemistry and physiology, this book explains the scientific basis that underlies this achievement. It is a success I have seen personally in the course of several periods spent working with Meller in Copenhagen.
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