In the previous sections we have seen how in the decade from 1920 to 1930 the original concept of sex hormones was transformed with regard to the basic assumptions underlying the early conceptualization of sex hormones. The question that emerges from this is whether scientists still adhered to the concept of sex hormones. Did the drastic changes in conceptualization affect in any way the very naming of sex hormones as male and female? A perusal of the publications of the 1930s suggests that the debate about the sexual specificity of sex hormones was also extended to the terminology and classification of sex hormones.
In the 1930s, many scientists expressed discontent with the terminology and classification of sex hormones, referring to these substances as “so — called” female sex hormones or simply putting the labels between parentheses. In this debate the Amsterdam School seems to have played an important role. They repeatedly criticized the use of the names “male” and “female” sex hormones. In the Dutch journal Het Chemisch Weekblad John Freud concluded in 1936:
On purpose we avoid classification in terms of male and female hormones. Maybe our laboratory has contributed the most to overthrowing this classification, since it has been proven experimentally that the oestrogenic substances of the male and the comb-growth stimulating substances of the female have certain functions and are found in the urine of both sexes.
(J. Freud 1936)
The Amsterdam School even expressed their doubts about whether these substances should be classified as sex hormones:
These substances are historically named sex hormones not because they are very important for sexual development, but merely because the changes these substances bring about in the organism can be observed with rather crude techniques of observation.
(J. Freud 1936)
In addition to the Dutch scientists, the British physiologist Vladimir Korenchevsky was also rather averse to the classification of male and female sex hormones; and both groups proposed other classifications (Korenchevsky and Hall 1938:998). Korenchevsky and his colleagues proposed a classification of sex hormones into three groups: purely male and female hormones (active only in male or female organisms), partially bisexual hormones (hormones with chiefly male or female properties), and true bisexual hormones (active in both sexes) (Korenchevsky et al. 1937).23
Laqueur’s group suggested that these substances might better be classified as catalysts, thus accommodating the wide variety of their functions (J. Freud 1936:12). From a chemical perspective, they even proposed abandoning the entire concept of sex hormones:
If we understand the hormones as catalysts for certain chemical conversions in cells, it would be easier to imagine the manifold activities of each hormonal substance.. .maybe the greatest discovery in the area of sex hormones will be the detection of the chemical conversions in the cells which are caused by steroids with certain structural qualities. Then the empirical concept of sex hormones will disappear and a part of biology will definitely pass into the property of biochemistry.
(J. Freud 1936:12-14)
As against this proposal, the zoologist Frank Lillie intended to adhere to the old names:
The great advances that have been made and consolidated especially in the chemistry and chemical relationships of the male and female sex hormones and in the study of the relations between gonads and hypophysis and of the gonadotropic hormones have served to complicate rather than to simplify our conceptions of the mechanisms of control of sexual characteristics. It seems inadvisable to include in a biological introduction the newer chemical terminology. The old terms male and female sex hormones carry the implication of control of sexual characteristics and represent conceptions that would be valid whatever the outcome of further chemical and physiological analysis.
(Lillie 1939:6)
The debate about the terminology and classification of sex hormones makes it clear how the different professional backgrounds of the disciplines involved in hormonal research led to a different conceptualization of sex hormones. Biochemists assigned meanings to their objects of study that were different from those of biologists. The hormone of the biochemist is in many respects quite different from the hormone of the biologists. From the chemical perspective, hormones were conceptualized as catalysts: chemical substances, sexually unspecific in origin and function, exerting manifold activities in the organism, instead of being primarily sex agents. From the biological perspective, hormones were conceptualized as sexually specific agents, controlling sexual characteristics.
What exactly happened to these different interpretations? Which interpretation of hormones became accepted as the dominant conceptualization of sex hormones? Although the chemical interpretation— emphasizing the resemblance of male and female sex hormones and the possibility of conversion from one to the other—did provoke confusion in the field of sex endocrinology, the prediction of the Amsterdam School was not fulfilled: the biological concept of sex hormones did not disappear. In the 1930s, we see the frequent use of a more specialized, technical terminology for sex hormones. Female sex hormones became known as estrin and estrogen (as a collective noun). For the male sex hormone the names androsterone and testosterone as specialized terms, and androgens as a collective term, became more frequently used. This new terminology did not, however, replace the old terms of female and male sex hormones.24 Although scientists abandoned the concept of sexual specificity, the terminology was not adjusted to this change in conceptualization. The concept of sex hormones thus showed its robustness under major changes in theory, allowing talk of sex hormones to continue unabated, even though new properties were being ascribed to the hormones. From the 1930s until recently, the names male and female sex hormones have been kept in current use, both inside and outside the scientific community.25 In this respect the biological perspective overruled the chemical perspective.
This outcome illustrates the strength of the tradition of biologists in the young field of sex endocrinology. The biologists had established a much longer tradition in the field than the biochemists, who were after all newcomers in the field. This does not mean that biologists can be portrayed as the “winners” of the debate. Both biochemists and biologists adjusted their interpretations of the concept of sex hormones: biologists adjusted their original interpretation of sex hormones as substances sex-ually specific in origin and function; while biochemists dropped their interpretation of hormones as catalysts. The interpretation that finally came to dominate the field may thus be considered as the result of a compromise between biologists and biochemists.