Gland Larceny
Testicle theft a real problem in 1922 Chicago
THE STORY EXPLODED NATIONWIDE over the Associated Press wire service on October 14 and 15, 1922. A married, 34-year-old “husky” World War I veteran and marginally employed Wisconsin beet farmer living in Chicago named Joseph Wozniak reported to police that he and a friend went to a Chicago bar, where they drank heavily with four other men. Later, as Wozniak explained to a physician named Dr. Sampelinski, the four men threw a bag over his head, forced him into a car and chloroformed him. He woke up on a sidewalk under a viaduct near 17th Street.
Then, he discovered that one or both of his testicles were missing.
“When I came to, my mind was befuddled,” Wozniak told police. “I did not know I had been operated on. I thought I had a hangover. I had the taste of ether or chloroform in my mouth. 1 felt intense pain and when I got home I called Dr. Sampelinski.”
According to the AP story, Wozniak was a target of “gland theft,” and the first victim of illegal organ harvesting in the United States.
Rejuvenation
An article titled “Rejuvenation by Testicular Transplantation and Occlusion of The Seminal Ducts” that appeared in the July 1922 Journal of the American Medical Association was taken quite seriously by someone…
