Willard Myron Allen

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Co-Discoverer of the universal pregnancy maintaining hormone who gave it the name progesterone. 1

Although considerable space has been devoted to the world changing, female hormone progesterone until now nothing has been written here about its remarkable co-discoverer, Willard Myron Allen (1904-1993). It is the purpose of this page to correct the oversight.

The day Allen isolated pure progestin (later named by him progesterone) was a very significant day in his life.

"... The isolation of the hormone from the waxy material obtained by high-vacuum distillation was a laborious and exasperating experience. However, the month of May 1933 was a glorious month. On May 5, I had the crystalline corpus luteum hormone. On May 18, my daughter, Lucille, was born. My friends gave me double congratulations and I was sitting on top of the world. ..."2

References

1. W.M. Allen, Physiology of the corpus luteum, V: the preparation and some chemical properties of progestin, a hormone of the corpus luteum which produces progestational proliferation, Am J Physiol 92 (1930), pp. 174–188.

2. W. M. Allen, My life with progesterone, Am J Obstetrics & Gynecology, 193 (4) 2005, pp. 1575-1577.