Bernhard Zondek

ZONDEK, Bernhard (born 1891), a well-known German gynecologist-endocrinologist. He began his scientific and pedagogical activity as an assistant at the women's clinic at the Charité in Berlin, under Professor Franz. From 1929, he was the director of the obstetric-gynecological clinic in the Berlin suburb of Spandau. He came to prominence in 1926–1927 with his remarkable research in the field of internal secretion of the female reproductive sphere. Together with Aschheim (simultaneously, but independently of P. E. Smith), he is credited with the discovery of the gonad-stimulating hormone of the anterior pituitary lobe. He also first discovered the fact of the mass appearance of the female sex hormone (folliculin) and sex stimulants (prolan "A" and "B" according to Zondek) in the urine of a pregnant woman. These discoveries by Zondek created the basis for two main directions in the study of the internal secretion of the female reproductive sphere. The very fact of the appearance of sex cycle hormones in urine with the onset of pregnancy was used by him to develop a method for the early diagnosis of pregnancy in women, which received the name of the Aschheim-Zondek reaction and allows for the recognition of pregnancy in a woman as early as the 14th, and sometimes the 7th day after conception. Following this, Zondek developed an analogous method for the diagnosis of pregnancy in mares by urine, starting from the 75th day after covering. Based on these data from Zondek, Soviet endocrinologists have currently developed and already transferred to industrial use a hormonal method for the diagnosis of pregnancy in animals (in mares, starting from the 60th day by urine and from the 42nd day by blood; in sows, starting from the 14th day; and in cows, starting from the 60th day). Another direction followed the path of studying the chemical nature and mass application of hormones obtained from the urine of pregnant women for medical and zootechnical purposes. These studies have currently concluded with the obtaining of folliculin in crystalline form and the final establishment of its structural formula (Doisy, Marrian, Butenandt) and with significant successes in the sense of developing methods for the arbitrary induction of estrus in agricultural animals (pig, fox, rabbit), which promise to resolve the urgent problems of socialist animal husbandry in the matter of combating infertility and for the reproduction of the herd. At the present time, Zondek, expelled by the fascists from Germany, is working in Stockholm. The most important works of Zondek: the monograph "Die Hormone des Ovariums und des Hypophysen-Vorderlappens" (Berlin, 1931); a series of articles in "Klinische Wochenschrift" from 1926 to 1933.