Impotence information

Before urologists recognized the physical nature of impotence, treatments generally fell into three categories—aphrodisiacs, surgery or transplants, and mechanical treatments.

Innumerable substances called aphrodisiacs have been used to increase sexual performance. Oysters, lobsters, eggs, and spices are some known aphrodisiacs. Noteworthy to mention, these sources are now recognized to do nothing more than irritate the genital organs. The user interprets this irritation as an increased sexual sensitivity, thereby creating the impression of increased performance.

In the 1880s, French physiologist Charles Edouard Brown-Sequard injected himself with an extract from a dog’s testicles that he claimed to have made him smarter, stronger, and more virile. In the 1920s, Eugen Steinach pioneered a surgical treatment of impotence called vasectomy. In the early twentieth century, Swiss professor Paul Niehans treated men with testicular cell injections. Another surgeon, Dr. Leo Stanley removed the testicles of recently executed prisoners and transplanted them into impotent prisoners. When the supply ran low, he substituted them with goat, ram, boar, and deer testicular tissues. It remains unclear whether any of these early attempts to treat impotence through the use of human or animal testicular tissue have actually worked. Most of the researchers mentioned eventually fell into disrepute.

In the US, Dr. John R. Brinkley broadcasted male impotence cures in his radio programs. He recommended expensive goat gland implants and “mercurochrome” injections as the paths to restore male virility. His medical license was revoked, and his radio license was not renewed.

For mechanical devices, many types of splints have been used to treat impotence, including hollowed-out antlers and horns. Although these initial attempts failed, penile prostheses are recently proven to be particularly reliable. During the 70s, surgeons began providing patients with inflatable penile implants.

The use of medications started in the ninth century until the sixteenth century. Muslim physicians and pharmacists in the medieval Islamic world were the first to prescribe medications for ED. They developed several methods of therapy, which include a single or a combination of drugs and food. Most were oral medications, though a few patients were also treated through topical and transurethral means. In 1983, modern drug therapy for ED made a significant exploit when British physiologist Giles Brindley, Ph.D. dropped his trousers and demonstrated to a shocked American Urological Association audience his phentolamine-induced erection. The drug he injected into his penis was a vasodilator, and the mechanism of action was muscle relaxation. This discovery established the fundamentals for the later development of orally-effective drug therapies. In 1998, a breakthrough in medicine occurred with the introduction of Viagra in the market as an effective drug against erectile dysfunction. The drug was originally researched for its beneficial effects in chronic increase in blood pressure and chest pains. A few years later, vardenafil and tadalafil are introduced as effective erections drugs.