Serge Voronoff and his assistant operating on an old dog in a laboratory at the College de France.
At the age of 18, after his graduation, Voronoff left Russia to study medicine in Paris.
Brown-Sequard conducted experiments on himself by injecting under his skin extracts of ground-up dog and guinea pig testicles.
Eventually, Voronoff started transplanting animal organs into willing human patients.
During the First World War, Voronoff became well known for performing bone transplants using material from combat amputees.
According to his observations, older animals transplanted with younger animals' testicles regained lost vigor.
Voronoff then attached the testicle tissue into the scrotum of the patient.
The thinness of the tissue samples allowed the foreign tissue to fuse with the human tissue completely.
Voronoff also speculated that the grafting surgery might be beneficial to people with certain mental illnesses such as schizophrenia.
Voronoffs treatment became hugely popular and many millionaires signed up for the procedure.
Between 1920 and 1940, some 2,000 people went under the knife, with 500 in France alone.
A comparison photo of a man before and after receiving Voronoffs treatment.
Voronoff did not limit his surgeries to men.
He also transplanted monkey ovaries to women in hopes of restoring their youth.
Two years later when Voronoff met her, she looked like a young 35-year-old, he claimed.
The publication of this experiment in a 1929 book by writer Felicien Champsaur further boosted Voronoff’s notoriety.
Voronoffs success afforded him a lavish lifestyle.
Another one of Voronoffs patient receiving his rejuvenation treatment.
The concept of hormones was not fully understood, and nothing was known about their role.
However, when testosterone was injected into animals it didnt rejuvenate them, nor did it prolong life.
The news left Voronoff disappointed, and he was much ridiculed in the press.
When Voronoff died in 1951, few newspapers published his obituary.
