CURING AN IDIOT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23201, 22 November 1938, Page 17

CURING AN IDIOT

GRAFTING ACHIEVEMENT SERGE VORONOFF'S CLAIM [FItOM a SrKCIAI, correspondent] LONDON. Oct. 29 The high priest of rejuvenation, Dr. Serge Voronoff, who claims that by monkey gland injections man can add many years to his normal life, spoke in London this week of his new task of making dull children brainy, r of giving intelligence to imbeciles. The 69-year-old doctor, who stands 6ft. 3in., talked about his work with children whose development, both physically and mentally, had been arrested, for whom no cure was known. "What T have done others can do,' he said. "What is certain is that a vast number of unfortunate children mav be restored to health and intelligence by this method of grafting.' Such arrested development is caused, Voronoff said, by failure of the thyroid gland to function. He called the thyroid "brain-oil." His first case, details of which have just been' given to the surgeons of Trance, goes back to 1915. A 20-year-old youth had never grown up. stood only three feet six, "was, in fact, a complete idiot. JNo a lies wore available for grafting so the bov's mother gave "the left half of her own thvroid gland.-Another graft with monkev gland was made later. In two vears the youth looked and was a normal intelligent man That simian thvroid graft truly worked a miracle, declared the surgeon.