DR. VORONOFF'S VITAL INVERSION [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—As one who heard Professor Voronoff lecturing recently at Cambridge, I feel I must take exception to Mr. M. L. Johnson's letter in a recent issue of the Spectator. It is obvious that your correspondent feels strongly about this subject, but he lets his feelings run away with him in quoting the following passage, applied to Dr. Voronoff's work by Sir K. MacKenzie : " Nothing less than another deliberate attempt of the forces of evil against humanity, veiled as usual under a cloak of beneficence, and carried out through agents uncon- scious of what they were really doing." After hearing Prof. Voronoff's reasoned arguments and witnessing his lively enthusiasm, one can only smile at this description of his work.
Mr. Johnson stresses the life-prolonging effects of the operations too much. At Cambridge Dr. Voronoff enlarged on the general benefits they produce, which it is difficult to describe in one word ; he said, " Ce n'est une affaire de mots," and that " rejuvenation " was merely the best approximation he could make to describing his result. Your correspondent resembles the narrow-minded critics of the Dark Ages in giving to a scientific attempt to alleviate the ills the flesh is heir to the absurd label " Black Magie."—I am, Sir, &c.,
Trinity College, Cambridge. W. STUART BEST.
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