Jose Canseco may like to be credited as the man who introduced anabolic steroids to baseball. And sportswriters may like to blame Patrick Arnold as the evil chemist who ruined baseball with the nefarious scheme to cook up designer steroids in his Illinois lab. But the truth is that anabolic steroids have been used long before either Canseco or Arnold were linked to the modern-day steroids in baseball scandal. If anyone is worried about an admitted steroid user finding their way into Major League Baseball’s Hall of Fame, well it’s a little too late for that.
The first baseball player to use steroids for performance-enhancing purposes has been documented as taking place over one hundred years ago. James Francis “Pud” Galvin famously and openly used the Brown-Sequard Ellixir named after the man who created and marketed it for performance enhancement.
What did this elixir contain? It contained testosterone and other androgens derived from animal testicles.
Who was the evil scientist who developed such an evil potion that threatened the integrity of baseball? It was Charles-Édouard Brown-Séquard. the father of modern-day hormone research, who promoted the extract of guinea pig and dog testicles to his colleagues and the public.
Far more important is that he was one of the first to postulate the existence of substances, now known as hormones, secreted into the bloodstream to affect distant organs. In particular, he demonstrated (in 1856) that removal of the adrenal glands resulted in death, due to lack of essential hormones. In his extreme old age, he advocated the hypodermic injection of a fluid prepared from the testicles of guinea pigs and dogs, as a means of prolonging human life. It was known, among scientists, derisively, as the Brown-Séquard Elixir.
The thing is that Pug Galvin was actually praised for using this steroid preparation. No one fretted about it destroying the integrity of baseball.
The Washington Post, who nowadays publishes anti-steroid news and commentary, raved about Pud Galvin’s use of steroids!
“If there still be doubting Thomases who concede no virtue of the elixir, they are respectfully referred to Galvin’s record in yesterday’s Boston-Pittsburgh game. It is the best proof yet furnished of the value of the discovery.”
If Barry Bonds only had the 1889 editorial staff and sportwriters of the Washington Post on his side…
About Millard Baker