A Century After the Description of "Hormones", Our Golden Jubilee Celebration Goes on with What is New in Endocrine Oncology: And a Lot is New!

About 3000 thousand years ago Marcus Aurelius said: "Time is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is its current; no sooner is a thing brought to sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away…" 1.

A Brief History of Modern Endocrinology and Definitions of a True Hormone.

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: An overview of the history of endocrinology indicates that definitions of some initially developed concepts, including the term 'hormone' have been changed over time. This review provides a historical overview of current definitions of 'hormone' and the criteria of a true hormone. In addition, a brief history of hormone-related concepts and their transformation over time are discussed. RESULTS: Classically, a hormone is a chemical substance secreted into the bloodstream and acts on distant tissues, usually in a regulatory fashion. Several newly discovered bioregulators and chemical signaling molecules are far from the classical definition of a true hormone and could not fulfill many relevant criteria. Major developments in the field of endocrinology accompanied by the complex terminology, currently used to describe hormonal actions of chemical messengers, underscore the need of the revision of such classical concepts. CONCLUSION: Complex terminology currently used to describe different hormonal actions of chemical messengers, suggests that it is time to conceptualize the term hormone and revise its classical definition.

Gastrointestinal Hormones Induced the Birth of Endocrinology.

The physiological studies by British physiologists William Maddock Bayliss and Ernest Henry Starling, at the beginning of the last century, demonstrated the existence of specific messenger molecules (hormones) circulating in the blood that regulate the organ function and physiological mechanisms. These findings led to the concept of endocrinology. The first 2 hormones were secretin, discovered in 1902, and gastrin, discovered in 1905. Both hormones that have been described are produced in the gut. This chapter summarizes the history around the discovery of these 2 hormones, which is perceived as the birth of endocrinology. It is noteworthy that after the discovery of these 2 gastrointestinal hormones, many other hormones were detected outside the gut, and thereafter gut hormones faded from both the clinical and scientific spotlight. Only recently, the clinical importance of the gut as the body's largest endocrine organ producing a large variety of hormones has been realized. Gastrointestinal hormones are essential regulators of metabolism, growth, development and behavior and are therefore the focus of a modern pediatric endocrinologist.

Acne pathogenesis: history of concepts.

From the first reliable descriptions of acne in the early 19th century, dermatologists recognized it as a disease of the pilosebaceous follicle. Until the middle of the 20th century, they hypothesized that seborrhoea, follicular keratosis and microorganisms could be individually responsible for the acne lesions. Inflammation was only regarded as the final and inescapable step of the acne process. Although the importance of these factors has been reevaluated, recent works still regarded them as mandatory. In the 1970s, the onset of isotretinoin dramatically improved acne management. It also provided great opportunities for a better understanding of the pathogenic factors of acne. This study analyzes their genesis and development from the seminal contributions until recent advances.

The demand for pregnancy testing: the Aschheim-Zondek reaction, diagnostic versatility, and laboratory services in 1930s Britain.

The Aschheim-Zondek reaction is generally regarded as the first reliable hormone test for pregnancy and as a major product of the 'heroic age' of reproductive endocrinology. Invented in Berlin in the late 1920s, by the mid 1930s a diagnostic laboratory in Edinburgh was performing thousands of tests every year for doctors around Britain. In her classic history of antenatal care, sociologist Ann Oakley claimed that the Aschheim-Zondek test launched a 'modern era' of obstetric knowledge, which asserted its superiority over that of pregnant women. This article reconsiders Oakley's claim by examining how pregnancy testing worked in practice. It explains the British adoption of the test in terms less of the medicalisation of pregnancy than of clinicians' increasing general reliance on laboratory services for differential diagnosis. Crucially, the Aschheim-Zondek reaction was a test not directly for the fetus, but for placental tissue. It was used, less as a yes-or-no test for ordinary pregnancy, than as a versatile diagnostic tool for the early detection of malignant tumours and hormonal deficiencies believed to cause miscarriage. This test was as much a product of oncology and the little-explored world of laboratory services as of reproductive medicine.

Hormones and the Bolsheviks: from organotherapy to experimental endocrinology, 1918-1929.

The discipline of endocrinology emerged over roughly the same period in Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States, and elsewhere, and its practitioners across the world shared research practices and agendas to a considerable degree. Yet the discipline's institutions, networks, and social practices were firmly embedded in the particular social fabric of concrete locales, and they were built on specific local traditions, resources, and patronage. Through analysis of the origins and early progress of Soviet endocrinology, this essay uncovers numerous factors and multiple actors involved with the institutional development of the discipline in the first decade of Bolshevik rule. As elsewhere in the world, the medicinal use of animal tissue extracts--organotherapy--paved the way for wide acceptance of the ideas of the nascent science of endocrinology by both the Soviet medical community and the general public. Organotherapy also supplied the new discipline with "seed" institutions, technologies, and personnel--the veterinarian Iakov Tobolkin and the therapist Vasilii Shervinskii. But the specific institutional, political, economic, and ideological landscape of Soviet Russia shaped the discipline in a particular way.

[History, presence and trends of steroid endocrinology]. / Historie, soucasnost a smerování steroidní endokrinologie.

The millstones achieved in the field of steroid endocrinology since thirties until present are outlined, including major goals obtained in the author's laboratory. After the brief historical survey the following chapters are devoted to steroid laboratory diagnostics, therapy and expected trends.

Evolution of the diffuse neuroendocrine system--clear cells and cloudy origins.

As early as the 2nd century, Galen proposed that 'vital spirits' in the blood regulated human bodily functions. However, the concept of hormonal activity required a further 18 centuries to develop and relied upon the identification of 'ductless glands', Schwann's cell and the recognition by Bayliss and Starling of chemical messengers. Bernard's introduction of 'internal secretion' and its role in homeostasis laid a physiological basis for the development of endocrinology. Kocher and Addison recognized the consequences of ablation of glands by disease or surgery and identified their necessary role in life. Detailed descriptions of the endocrine cells of the gut and pancreas and their putative function were provided by Heidenhain, Langerhans, Laguesse and Sharpey-Schafer. Despite the dominant 19th century concept of nervism (Pavlov), in 1902, Starling and Bayliss using Hardy's term 'hormonos' described secretin and in so doing, established the gut as an endocrine organ. Thus, nervism was supplanted by hormonal regulation of function and thereafter numerous bioactive gut peptides and amines were identified. At virtually the same time (1892), Ramón y Cajal of Madrid reported the existence of a group of specialized intestinal cells that he referred to as 'interstitial cells'. Cajal postulated that they might function as an interface between the neural system and the smooth muscles of the gut. Some 22 years later, Keith suggested that their function might be analogous to the electroconductive system of the heart and proposed their role as components of an intestinal pacemaker system. This prescient hypothesis was subsequently confirmed in 1982 by Thuneberg and a decade later Maede identified c-Kit as a critical molecular regulator in the development and function of the interstitial cells of Cajal and further confirmed the commonality of neural and endocrine cells. The additional characterization of the endocrine regulatory system of the GI tract was implemented when Feyrter (1938) using Masson's staining techniques, identified 'helle Zellen' within the pancreatic ductal system and the intestinal epithelium and proposed the concept of a diffuse neuroendocrine system. Pearse subsequently grouped the various cells belonging to that system under the rubric of a unifying APUD series. Currently, the gut neuroendocrine system is viewed as a syncytium of neural and endocrine cells sharing a common cell lineage whose phenotypic regulation is as yet unclear. Their key role in the regulation of gastrointestinal function is, however, indubitable.

[On the centennial of hormones. A tribute to Ernest H. Starling and William M. Bayliss]. / El centenario de las hormonas. Un recuerdo de Ernest H. Starling y William M. Bayliss.

Ernest H. Starling introduced the term hormone 100 years ago in his Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in June 1905. It was demonstrated for the first time that one part of the body could influence the function of another distant part. Starling for the first time suggested the word hormone. This review attempts to trace the development of studies in endocrinology, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century. Starling discovered secretin, the first hormone, in collaboration with William M. Bayliss, and they introduced the hormone concept with recognition of chemical regulation. Thus the name hormone sparked multidisciplinary research in endocrinology and molecular biology, which shed light on the chemical communication within the organism.

El centenario de las hormonas: Un recuerdo de Ernest H. Starling y William M. Bayliss / On the centennial of hormones: A tribute to Ernest H. Starling and William M. Bayliss

En junio de 2005 se cumplió el primer centenario de la introducción de la palabra hormona para definir al mensajero químico que originado en un tejido viaja a través de la circulación para alcanzar otro tejido distante y ejercer un efecto específico. Ernest H. Starling presentó en junio de 1905 las Conferencias Croone en las que desarrolló la teoría del control químico del organismo como una culminación de sus previas investigaciones que había realizado en colaboración con el fisiólogo William M. Bayliss sobre la fisiología del corazón, el intercambio capilar, la reabsorción tubular del glomérulo renal y el peristaltismo intestinal. La primera hormona recibió el nombre de secretina y su descubrimiento desencadenó un incontable número de investigaciones multidisciplinarías que han permitido el avance en el conocimiento de la biología molecular y particularmente en el área de la endocrinología.

Ernest H. Starling introduced the term hormone 100 years ago in his Croonian Lectures to the Royal College of Physicians in June 1905. It was demonstrated for the first time that one part of the body could influence the function of another distant part. Starling for the first time suggested the word hormone. This review attempts to trace the development of studies in endocrinology, beginning in the middle of the nineteenth century. Starling discovered secretin, the first hormone, in collaboration with William M. Bayliss, and they introduced the hormone concept with recognition of chemical regulation. Thus the name hormone sparked multidisciplinary research in endocrinology and molecular biology, which shed light on the chemical communication within the organism.

[100 years of hormones: the physiologist Ernest H. Starling's introduction of the hormone concept and the missing Nobel Prize]. / 100 år med hormoner: fysiologen Ernest H. Starlings introduktion af hormonbegrebet og den manglende nobelpris.

The term hormone is by now familiar to all, but it is the English physiologist and physician Ernest H. Starling's term, and before him the search made little sense even in the light of "internal secretion". He saw the great potential of regulatory physiology through chemical coordination of the bodily functions by the circulating blood. Throughout his life he stressed fundamental scientific attitudes and ideas with remarkable persistence and power, and hormones have stood the test of time. Sadly, he never received a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.