Clinical Use Of Testosterone In The Male Climacteric

The male climacteric presents one of the complex problems of aging. Its etiology is confused and undetermined. Its symptomatology is involved, tremendously varied, and rarely brought to the attention of the physician in all its diversity. This latter fact is so, because of the very diversity of these symptoms and because of the apparent lack of relationship between the various physiologic systems involved. Treatment of this state is still in its earliest trial stage. No definite set of criteria for determining the age limits of the climacteric state has been developed. Limits range from Havelock Ellis' description of the onset of the ‘critical age’ at 38, to any decade there' after. Certainly, copulatory frequency is no criterion of the climacteric since Pearl's data on such frequency indicated a high variability—8 to 10 times as variable as data for body weight.