THOMAS WEBSTER EDGAR
Tired Rabbits for Diabetes; Ring-Tailed Monkeys for Sex Stimulation
During the last two or three years The Journal has received inquiries regarding one Thomas Webster Edgar, M.D., of New York City, first, relative to his alleged treatment for diabetes and more recently about his “monkey gland” treatment for sex stimulation. Here is one from a physician in Washington:
“Have you any knowledge of the efficacy of a serum made from the pancreas of rabbits for the relief or cure of diabetes? It is made by Dr. T. W. Edgar of 766 West End Ave., New York City.”
And this from a layman in Pennsylvania:
“Last year there was published in the New York Herald an account of the new treatment for diabetes in which a serum was injected in the veins and as a result it was claimed that over sixty-five per cent. of the treatments made were successful. The account further stated that they proposed to establish some sort of a sanitarium in New York City used especially for the treatment. The writer having mislaid the account, wrote the New York Herald as to the doctor who had charge of it and in return was given the name and address. Dr. Edgar in a letter under date of last year stated that the cost of the treatment was $300.00, payable beginning of the treatment, and he gave very little information as to the success of it, with the exception that if the treatment did not give the desired effect after the end of three months, it would be continued without any further cost. The writer wrote and asked him the names of one or two of the patients who had been cured, because it seemed rather unusual that if the treatment were a success, it was necessary for a patient to pay the cost of the treatment in advance. To that letter I have never received a reply.”
While a physician from Illinois writes:
“I am enclosing a clipping from a Chicago paper relative to Dr. Thomas Webster Edgar of New York and his operation for transplanting the glands of ring-tailed monkey. I note that he is a member of the New York County Medical Society! What is there to this? I have seen no mention of these wonders in The Journal.”
Thomas Webster Edgar was born in 1889. The records show that he was graduated in medicine by the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical College in 1913, and was licensed to practice medicine in the State of New York the same year. In March, 1919, an article by T. Webster Edgar appeared in the New York Medical Journal on “Diabetes Mellitus.” In this Edgar gave a theory of the cause of diabetes mellitus and stated that he had “treated successfully, twenty cases of definite diabetes.” In the article he spoke positively of the successful results he had obtained by the “intramuscular injections of my diabetic serum.” No information was given regarding this serum except that he mentioned vaguely that it was “prepared from normal blood after the animal is exercised to the point of fatigue.”