Human Height Manipulation
Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Height
Susan Cohen, Author
Writers Christine Cosgrove and Susan Cohen book, Normal at Any Cost, examines some of the drastic
and life-threatening medical treatments that short boys and tall girls endured in order to obtain a
'normal' height.
Cosgrove said the medical community began worrying about girls' heights in the late 1940s, a time
when society expected women to be shorter than men. Advice columns from the period even
suggested that parents withhold food and vitamins from tall female children in order to stunt their
growth, she added. Cosgrove recounted the story of a girl named Laura who was prescribed massive
doses of synthetic estrogen to prevent her from growing any taller. As an adult Laura suffered several
miscarriages and had other medical problems that may have been caused by these treatments,
Cosgrove noted.
Cohen spoke about the pituitary gland's role in controlling growth, which she said was first theorized
by neurosurgeon H.W. Cushing. In 1958, researchers discovered that pituitary glands harvested from
human cadavers could be used to help dwarfed children grow. Tragically, an incurable and fatal
neurological disorder, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, was accidentally passed on to some patients who
received these growth hormone treatments, Cohen pointed out. Since then a synthetic growth
hormone has been developed that poses no such risk, she remarked.
Buy the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585426830/ctoc/ctoc
Next
Normal at Any Cost: Tall Girls, Short Boys, and the Medical Industry's Quest to Manipulate Height
Susan Cohen, Author
Writers Christine Cosgrove and Susan Cohen book, Normal at Any Cost, examines some of the drastic
and life-threatening medical treatments that short boys and tall girls endured in order to obtain a
'normal' height.
Cosgrove said the medical community began worrying about girls' heights in the late 1940s, a time
when society expected women to be shorter than men. Advice columns from the period even
suggested that parents withhold food and vitamins from tall female children in order to stunt their
growth, she added. Cosgrove recounted the story of a girl named Laura who was prescribed massive
doses of synthetic estrogen to prevent her from growing any taller. As an adult Laura suffered several
miscarriages and had other medical problems that may have been caused by these treatments,
Cosgrove noted.
Cohen spoke about the pituitary gland's role in controlling growth, which she said was first theorized
by neurosurgeon H.W. Cushing. In 1958, researchers discovered that pituitary glands harvested from
human cadavers could be used to help dwarfed children grow. Tragically, an incurable and fatal
neurological disorder, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, was accidentally passed on to some patients who
received these growth hormone treatments, Cohen pointed out. Since then a synthetic growth
hormone has been developed that poses no such risk, she remarked.
Buy the book on Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1585426830/ctoc/ctoc
Next
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