Throughout the centuries the desire to make money out of other people’s suffering has induced smart operators to sell a wide, and apparently increasing, variety of drugs. The drugs have followed fashions. One hundred years ago in the U.S.A. the chosen remedy was snake oil (notice the sympathetic medicine). Today vitamin E is said to help.
Perhaps a more scientific treatment, but usually no more successful than other treatments, is to give an impotent man a series of injections of the male sex hormone (androgen) in the form of methyltestosterone. The argument is that a man’s libido is due to the androgens which circulate in his blood and stimulate the sex centre in his brain. If his libido is reduced, as evidenced by his inability to obtain an erection, injections of androgens will stiffen him up! Large quantities of testosterone have been given by injection to impotent men with no improvement, except that due to the psychological effect of an injection. Unfortunately, few of the enthusiasts have used a scientific approach – that of the double blind trial. In a double blind trial of a drug, a series of injections (or tablets) are made up, one half containing the drug under test, and the other half containing an innocuous substance, which is indistinguishable in appearance, taste, or feel from the drug under test.
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