Long overlooked, menstrual blood is a treasure trove for science
Aug 26, 2024 · So in the early 1920s, there was this pediatrician in the United States who helped popularize this idea of a menotoxin, which was supposedly this substance that people who are menstruating...
Lancet wondered if the elusive menotoxin was in fact related to prostaglandins, hormone-like chemical messengers produced by the body that may be elevated during a woman's period.
Periods on display - The Lancet
Sep 25, 2021 · After follow-up experiments, Schick developed the theory of menotoxin, a poison created within menstrual blood. Scientific studies in the 1940s and 1950s continued to test the menotoxin theory through experiments on animals, and the exhibition claims that the theory persisted in some quarters until the 1970s.
‘Menotoxins’ in a history of periods: impurity or superstition?
Oct 11, 2021 · At Harvard University in the 1950s, George and Olive Smith – specialists in reproductive diseases who would coin the term ‘menotoxin’—also investigated. They took samples of menstrual blood and injected it into small animals, which killed them.
Menotoxin: When the Menstrual Cycle Kills - RealClearScience
Sep 10, 2013 · Menotoxin: When the Menstrual Cycle Kills. In the 1920s there was a serious medical debate about an invisible substance called â??menotoxinâ??. This was believed to exist in menstrual blood; it could blight flowers and prevent jam from setting, and bread from rising.
Menotoxin - when menstruation can kill? - Wonders & Marvels
Sep 10, 2013 · In the 1920s there was a serious medical debate about an invisible substance called ‘menotoxin’. This was believed to exist in menstrual blood; it could blight flowers and prevent jam from setting, and bread from rising.
Experimental studies, old and new, on menstrual toxin
Abstract. PIP: Scientific investigation on menotoxin, or menstrual toxin, started around 1920. Since then a number of zoopharmacological reactions, and a number of phytotoxic effects of menotoxin have been described.
A PHYTO-PHARMACOLOGICAL STUDY OF MENSTRUAL TOXIN
The menotoxin while elaborated in varying quantities by different individuals can be demonstrated in almost every subject; and it occurs in the largest quantities in any one individual premenstrually or just before the onset, and during the first few days of menstruation.
What We Still Don’t Know About Periods - The New Yorker
Apr 12, 2023 · Though the menotoxin theory was eventually refuted, periods continue to have noxious associations. Clancy cites one study, from 2002, in which a female actor was asked to drop either a tampon or...
It was shown that menotoxin can produce definite pharmacologic effects on suitable zoological test objects, but, nevertheless, the phytopharmacologic approach was the most striking and sensitive one for studying this particular toxin.