A stiff test for the history books

Tuesday, March 17, 2009 - 04:15 in Psychology & Sociology

At a 1983 lecture, Dr Giles Skey Brindley demonstrated that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erectionDr Giles Skey Brindley, FRCP, FRS, knows how to stand proud. At a 1983 Urodynamics Society lecture in Las Vegas, he demonstrated - with panache - that he could inject drugs into his penis and thereby cause an erection.Brindley had developed the first effective treatment for what was then called "impotence" and today goes by the stiffer euphemism "erectile dysfunction". His appearance in Las Vegas ensured that the discovery would not go unnoticed.Two decades later, Laurence Klotz, a University of Toronto urologist, wrote a firsthand account of his experience at that meeting. How (Not) to Communicate New Scientific Information: A Memoir of the Famous Brindley Lecture, graces the November 2005 issue of the urological journal BJU International. Klotz reports: "[Brindley] indicated that, in his view, no normal person would...

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