Birth Control Pill Pioneer Turns 100

Abstract

This is a slide show [and PDF] of an interview with Sam Leonard conducted on his birthday, November 26, 2005. The conversation with friends was spirited as Sam recounted that in 1931, at 26 years of age, he published two seminal papers. One paper demonstrated that estrogen could be used as a contraceptive pill. The other paper was the first one to demonstrate that the anterior pituitary gland produced two gonadotropins, follicle stimulating hormone and luteinizing hormone. Sam chuckled as he recounted his discovery that all you needed to do to get female canaries to sing was to give them a male voice with testosterone.