Insall R. Dispatch. Dictyostelium chemotaxis: fascism through the back door? Curr Biol. 2003 Apr 29;13(9):R353-4. doi: 10.1016/s0960-9822(03)00274-4. PMID: 12725750.
Abstract Aggregating Dictyostelium cells secrete cyclic AMP to attract their neighbours by chemotaxis. It has now been shown that adenylyl cyclase is enriched in the rear of cells, and this localisation is required for normal aggregation. Dictyostelium discoideum cells undergo a major lif
Eraso Y. Biotypology, endocrinology, and sterilization: the practice of eugenics in the treatment of Argentinian women during the 1930s. Bull Hist Med. 2007 Winter;81(4):793-822. doi: 10.1353/bhm.2007.0130. PMID: 18084107; PMCID: PMC2629848.
SUMMARYThis article looks at medical approaches to women’s fertility in Argentina in the 1930s and explores the ways in which eugenics encouraged the reproduction of the fit and attempted to avoid the reproduction of the unfit. The analysis concentrates on three main aspects: biotypology (the scie
the hormone hustle
We’re about to embark on a time-traveling, mind-bending journey through the evolution of normalization, biopolitics, and the wild world of hormones. From Foucault’s philosophical bombshells to Nicola Pende’s hormone-fueled science experiments, this is a story that will leave y
Beccalossi C. Sexology, sexual development, and hormone treatments in Southern Europe and Latin America, c.1920-40. Hist Human Sci. 2023 Dec;36(5):94-121. doi: 10.1177/09526951231213028. Epub 2023 Dec 6. PMID: 38077463; PMCID: PMC10700059.
AbstractDisplacing the physiological model that had held sway in 19th-century medical thinking, early 20th-century medical scientists working on hormones promoted a new understanding of the body, psychological reactions, and the sexual instinct, arguing that each were fundamentally malleable. Hormon
Beccalossi C. Italian sexology, Nicola Pende’s biotypology and hormone treatments in the 1920s. Hist Med Sante. 2017 Winter;12:73-97. doi: 10.4000/hms.1173. Epub 2018 May 28. PMID: 31501760; PMCID: PMC6733708.
AbstractThis article analyses a selection of Nicola Pende’s studies from the 1920s on ‘endocrinological abnormalities’ associated with impotence, a lack of virility in men, a lack of femininity in women, and homosexuality. By analysing endocrinological sexual theories and treatments, it aims t
BECCALOSSI C. Optimizing and normalizing the population through hormone therapies in Italian science, c.1926–1950. The British Journal for the History of Science. 2020;53(1):67-88. doi:10.1017/S0007087419000906
Abstract This essay explores how hormone treatments were used to optimize and normalize individuals under Italian Fascism. It does so by taking the activities of the Biotypological Orthogenetic Institute − an Italian eugenics and endocrinological centre founded by Nicola Pende in 1926 − as the p