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According to one authority, within a year of the Paris presentation, more than 12,000 physicians were administering the extract to their patients (Hansen, Bull.Hist.Med., 1999). The dramatic self-experimentation and resulting zealous adoption of 'rejuvenation' by many physicians earned wide reportage in a skeptical lay press, stimulating songs, comic poems, satirical writings, and political caricatures.

A century later, scientists in Australia attempted to repeat the extraction of male hormones from dog testes, following the methods published by Brown-Sequard in his original work. Testosterone concentrations of the extract were measured by radio-immunoassay. The Australians found that each of the Brown-Sequard injections would have contained only about 100 ng of testosterone, whereas daily testosterone secretion in man is about 6 mg. Further, the testis does not store testosterone, but releases the hormone upon synthesis into the systemic circulation; thus extracts from the testis would not be expected to be particularly rich in testosterone. The authors conclude,

"…the placebo effect can be powerful, even in a highly educated physician (Cussons, Med.J.Aust., 2002)."

Hypodermic Syringe, c.1880

Brown-Sequard, C. Note on the effects produced in man by subcutaneous injections of a liqueid obtained from the testicles of animals (Lancet 2: 105, 1889).