1926

Two Berlin scientists, Ascheim and Zondek, analyzed urine from pregnant patients and discovered that human pregnancy urine was far more active than best ovarian extracts as source of female sex hormones  gynecologists temporarily regained stronger position in emerging field of sex endocrinology, as gatekeepers of supply of urine (in 1930, urine of pregnant mares replaced human urine). Within two years, research groups in U.S., Germany, and the Netherlands reported isolation of female sex hormone from human pregnancy urine (Oudshoorn I, 16-17). Research on sex hormones was increasingly controlled by laboratory scientists and pharmaceutical companies, and within the laboratory, biochemists partly replaced the physiologists (18).