The History of Infertility Treatment

Abstract

The therapeutic means of effectively treating infertile couples which are available at the end of the twentieth century seem altogether to be the result of a long and laborious scientific development. It is justified to date the beginning of this development back to the conceptual foundation of “steroid chemistry” as formulated by Windaus in 1903. It was not until then that biochemistry became the principle scientific basis for future development, itself leading to the crystallization of ovarian hormones that was finally achieved. Progress was fast, but detailed knowledge increased only step by step until the two last decades, when extracorporal fertilization in humans appeared on the scence and gave rise to further rapid expansion of the reproductive technologies, their refinement and extension going hand in hand. A new field, that of reproductive medicine, was born, and no one would have foreseen the course of scientific events and the relative ease of their applicability to infertile women at the beginning of our century. The literature in reproductive medicine which reflects the technological development has grown tremendously since 1980. Nevertheless, three main streams can still be recognized:

• 1. Gynecologic endocrinology for conservative treatment and for the medical preparation of superovulation before assisted reproduction (Table 1)

• 2. Microsurgery of the tubes (Table 2)

• 3. Medically assisted reproduction in a stricter sense with multifold technical variations already existing (Table 3)