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

Olszynko-Gryn, Jesse

doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2013.12.002

Cited by 24 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 100 publications

(110 reference statements)

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“… 8 On the distinction between animal models as biomedical replica and animal models as instruments, see Germain ( 2014 ). For the use of mice in pregnancy testing, see Olszynko-Gryn ( 2013 ). For the use of animal bodies to produce vaccines and sera, see Latour ( 1988 ), Simon ( 2008 ), Kotar and Gessler ( 2013 ), Mendelsohn ( 2016 ).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to “Working Across Species”

Dentinger

Woods

2018

HPLS

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Comparison between different animal species is omnipresent in the history of science and medicine but rarely subject to focussed historical analysis. The articles in the “Working Across Species” topical collection address this deficit by looking directly at the practical and epistemic work of cross-species comparison. Drawn from papers presented at a Wellcome-Trust-funded workshop in 2016, these papers investigate various ways that comparison has been made persuasive and successful, in multiple locations, by diverse disciplines, over the course of two centuries. They explore the many different animal features that have been considered to be (or else made) comparable, and the ways that animals have shaped science and medicine through the use of comparison. Authors demonstrate that comparison between species often transcended the range of practices typically employed with experimental animal models, where standardised practises and apparatus were applied to standardised bodies to produce generalizable, objective data; instead, comparison across species has often engaged diverse groups of non-standard species, made use of subjective inferences about phenomena that cannot be directly observed, and inspired analogies that linked physiological and behavioural characteristics with the apparent affective state of non-human animals. Moreover, such comparative practices have also provided unusually fruitful opportunities for collaborative connections between different research traditions and disciplines.

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mentioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to “Working Across Species”

Dentinger

Woods

2018

HPLS

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“…To go into slightly more detail, the Aschheim-Zondek ‘mouse’ test for early pregnancy, a German innovation, was adopted in Britain in 1929 as the first reliable bioassay for hCG ( Olszynko-Gryn, 2014a ). Each test involved injecting several mice with a woman's urine, then killing and dissecting the mice to observe the presence, or not, of characteristic ovarian changes induced by the hormone.…”

Section: Marketing Pills As Pregnancy Testsmentioning

confidence: 99%

A historical argument for regulatory failure in the case of Primodos and other hormone pregnancy tests

Olszynko-Gryn¹,

Bjørvik²,

Weßel³

et al. 2018

Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online

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The drug Primodos and other hormone pregnancy tests (HPTs) remained on the British market for about a decade after they were first implicated, in 1967, as a possible cause of birth defects. In November 2017, an expert working group (EWG) set up by the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) concluded against such an association. However, it was explicitly ‘not within the remit of the EWG to make formal conclusions or recommendations on the historical system or regulatory failures’, a situation that has left many stakeholders dissatisfied. Placing the question of a teratogenicity to one side, this article takes a more contextual and comparative approach than was possible under the auspices of MHRA. It asks why an unnecessary and possibly even harmful drug was allowed to remain on the British market when a reliable and perfectly safe alternative existed: urine tests for pregnancy. Based on archival research in several countries, this article builds a historical argument for regulatory failure in the case of HPTs. It concludes that the independent review which campaigners are calling for would have the potential to not only bring them a form of closure, but would also shed light on pressing issues of more general significance regarding risk, regulation and communication between policy makers, medical experts and patients.

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“…Rabbits were very important in the progress of embryological research, as epitomized by Gregory Pincus’ work on IVF in rabbits in the 1930s, and Cambridge scientist LEA Rowson had flown fertilized sheep ova from the UK to South Africa, carried in a live rabbit’s fallopian tubes, in 1962 ( Turney, 1998: 165 ). Rabbits are also colloquially associated with prodigious fertility, and in the early 20th century, they were used alongside mice and frogs in developing bioassays for pregnancy testing (see Olszynko-Gryn, 2014 ). The ‘rabbit test’ consequently became a euphemism for pregnancy testing, which was still in use in the 1970s.…”

Section: ‘It’s the All-british Miracle’: British Values In The Birth mentioning

confidence: 99%

‘The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978

Dow¹

2017

Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online

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This article examines how the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in the story of the birth of the first ‘test-tube baby’, Louise Brown. In 1978, the British press represented the birth of Louise Brown as both a success and a source of hope. The main pairs of protagonists in this story were Steptoe and Edwards and Lesley and John Brown, who metonymically represented British science and infertile couples, respectively. In the dominant ‘success’ narrative of the birth of Louise Brown as depicted in the British press in 1978, Edwards and Steptoe seemed to embody ‘British’ values of industriousness, perseverance, altruism, ingenuity and teamwork. Thus, their success was simultaneously a British success. With Louise Brown’s birth, in-vitro fertilization came to stand for the potential happiness of infertile people and a bright future for British science and industry.

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

Abstract: HighlightsReconsiders pregnancy diagnosis alongside other laboratory services.Shows how diagnostic versatility was made into a major selling point of the Aschheim-Zondek test.Explains demand in terms of medical entrepreneurs and diagnostic consumers.

Cited by 24 publications

References 100 publications

Introduction to “Working Across Species”

Introduction to “Working Across Species”

A historical argument for regulatory failure in the case of Primodos and other hormone pregnancy tests

‘The men who made the breakthrough’: How the British press represented Patrick Steptoe and Robert Edwards in 1978

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