Responsiveness of the pituitary-testicular axis to gonadotropin-releasing hormone and chorionic gonadotropin during the first week of life.

Qualitative changes are known to occur in testicular steroidogenesis at birth as the testosterone peak is reached without significant elevation of basal luteinizing hormone in the 2nd wk of life. This study was designed to evaluate testicular activity prior to these changes. Pituitary-testicular function was studied by measuring serum gonadotropins and steroids after stimulation by gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) (one intravenous injection) and human chorionic gonadotropin (hCG) (three intramuscular injections).

Moral and humane: patients' libraries in early nineteenth-century American mental hospitals.

"Moral treatment" designates a period in American psychiatry in the first half of the nineteenth century when retreats and asylums, following the example of the York Retreat in England, began to offer humane care to the mentally ill. Patients had a close and personal relationship with the hospital superintendent or the resident physician; positive behavior was rewarded and patients were expected to exercise self-control. Moral treatment was marked by a well-ordered daily routine in which patients followed a therapeutic regimen of work and leisure activities.

Steroidogenic response to a single injection of hCG in pre- and early pubertal cryptorchid boys.

The temporal response patterns of the concentrations of serum testosterone, oestradiol, 17-hydroxyprogesterone, pregnenolone, progesterone, androstenedione and 5 alpha-dihydrotestosterone to a single i.m. dose of hCG (5000 IU/1.

Male pseudohermaphroditism due to deficiency of testicular 17-ketosteroid reductase.

A 12.9 year-old girl, genotypically 46, XY, and considered to have a testicular feminization syndrome, developed signs of virilization and gynaecomastia. Very high androstenedione concentrations (10-fold the mean of the reference interval in boys) in relation to low normal testosterone in peripheral serum indicated a 17-ketosteroid reductase deficiency.