John Rock (physician)
John Rock | |
---|---|
Born | John Charles Rock March 24, 1890 |
Died | December 4, 1984 | (aged 94)
Alma mater | Harvard University Harvard Medical School |
Medical career | |
Field | Obstetrics and Gynecology |
Institutions | Free Hospital for Women Rock Reproductive Clinic |
Sub-specialties | Reproductive medicine |
Research | in vitro fertilization |
John Charles Rock (March 24, 1890 – December 4, 1984) was an American
He was the founder of the Rock Reproductive Study Center at the
Rock was a known scientist, obstetrician, and gynecologist, but he was also an author who wrote a few books after he discovered the contraceptive pill. Before discovering the first contraceptive method, he did not express an interest in pharmacology. Rock was also a pioneer in
Early life
John Charles Rock was born on March 24, 1890, in Marlborough, Massachusetts. He was born into a Roman Catholic family and was one of four children.[2]
During his early years at the High School of Commerce in Boston, he had a desire to pursue a business career.[3] He worked on plantations for the United Fruit Company in Guatemala and for an engineering firm in Rhode Island and realized that business was not his calling. He became friends with the company's doctor, Neil MacPhail, who mentored Rock and allowed him to assist in surgeries at the hospital he managed.[2]
In 1912, Rock attended
Career
Rock originally planned to specialize in nervous disorders. However, he decided to change it to obstetrics and gynecology.[4] and founded his own medical practice a few years later[3]
As his career progressed, and despite being a devout Catholic, Rock also became known for his acceptance of
For most of Rock's medical career, he directed and practiced at the Fertility and Endocrine Clinic at the
Working with Arthur Hertig, Rock identified implantation and the following stages of embryonic development.
In vitro fertilization
Rock hired Miriam Menkin, a research technician who assisted Gregory Pincus in the rabbit IVF experiments.[2] They researched and experimented for six years until, finally, on February 6, 1944, Menkin fertilized her first egg. When a procedure to preserve the specimen was not decided on quickly enough, the egg disappeared.[2] Not long after, Menkin fertilized three eggs properly preserved them, and took pictures.[2] Rock announced their accomplishment and received some skepticism and doubt from other scientists and notable zoologist, Carl Hartman.[2] It was not until a baby was born in 1978, did fellow scientists, researchers, and the public attribute the first human in vitro fertilization to Rock and Menkin.[2]
To help women struggling with infertility, Rock's principal objective was to develop a fetus in an artificial womb.[2] He believed in vitro fertilization would help women all over the country who were infertile and could not have children. Rock was known for being caring, respectful, and honest with his patients who badly wanted to conceive a child.[2] Towards the end of the 1940s, Rock received letters from several women from across the United states who wanted to try in vitro fertilization. Since there were still a multitude of questions about the process of IVF that needed to be answered and technology that needed to be developed, Rock tried to convey that IVF pregnancies were not likely.[2]
With the likelihood of IVF pregnancies still being decades down the road, he took a step back from his IVF research and entertained alternative infertility treatments.[2]
Birth control
In 1951 and 1952,
Rock was seventy years old when Enovid was approved for contraceptive use.[3][5] Over the next eight years, Rock campaigned vigorously for Roman Catholic approval of the pill. He published a book, The Time Has Come: A Catholic Doctor's Proposals to End the Battle over Birth Control, and was subsequently featured in Time and Newsweek, and gave a one-hour interview to NBC.[5] In 1958, Pope Pius XII declared that the use of the pill to treat menstrual disorders was not contrary to Catholic morals. Rock believed it was only a matter of time before the Catholic Church approved its use as a contraceptive.
In 1968, the papal encyclical Humanae vitae laid out definitively the Catholic Church's opposition to hormonal and all other artificial means of contraception. Rock was profoundly disappointed. Consequently, he withdrew from the church that he loved so much.[7]
Although it has been claimed by some journalists that Rock was to blame for adding "unnecessary" breaks in the use of the pill (instructing one week of taking placebo sugar pills every month), Jane Dickson of the Faculty of Sexual and Reproductive Healthcare of RCOG stated in an interview that there were many more reasons for a placebo period, including as a recovery period from the then high dosage of hormones from the pill, and as reassurance that in having menstrual flow (although it was not a true period) one was not pregnant.[8]
Clinical trials
The initial clinical trials were codeveloped by Rock and were funded by Katherine McCormick, a collaborator of Sanger who dreamed of the creation of a female-controlled contraceptive method.[9] With this funding, Pincus joined Rock to observe contraceptive effects of progesterone on Rock's female patients.[10]
In 1954, the two doctors began their first trials on fifty women in Massachusetts. Rock and Pincus used an oral contraceptive pill containing synthetic progesterone supplied by a pharmaceutical company, Searle.[10] These trials occurred under what appeared to be considered a fertility study, as contraception was illegal in Massachusetts. The pill containing progesterone was taken by women for 21 days followed by a seven-day break.[10] Rock and Pincus wanted to give the body an opportunity for menstruation so that this drug would not conflict with the natural biological processes in women. The concluding results revealed no ovulation occurred in any of the women during drug administration.[10]
Rock's written scientific research explained how this drug succeeded in inhibiting ovulation, but skepticism remained present among authorities.[10] To provide further evidence of their developed oral contraceptive pill, Pincus and Rock moved their studies to Puerto Rico to conduct their trials on a larger scale in 1956.[10] The pill was reported successful regarding preventative purposes but brought too many side effects for legal consideration, which was stated by the medical director of the clinical trials in Puerto Rico.[10] While Pincus believed that only a few, mild side effects would come about, roughly half of the participants in the study dropped out due to side effects like severe headaches, nausea, and vomiting.[11]
It was noticed after that the transportation of pills from Searle was contaminated, due to a mixture of synthetic estrogen with the progesterone.[10] This was an obstacle for the two doctors, but their further research and testing revealed the addition of estrogen in combination with progesterone can help reduce menstrual comfort.[10]
In 1960, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the use of the oral contraceptive, developed by Rock and Pincus.[12] This female-controlled contraceptive method, known as the Pill, became a rapid, nationwide use for protection against pregnancy.
Later years
In later years, Rock and Menkin would receive many letters from people about Rock's early optimism for how long it would take for IVF to be used in the clinic. Rock was said to have been filled with sadness as he had to inform women that the IVF technology would not be ready in time. He had then predicted that it would be decades before in vitro fertilization was used to successfully make women pregnant. After realizing he could no longer contribute to the IVF project, Rock decided to move on. He wanted to develop a more successful way of opening blocked fallopian tubes, therefore his last idea before abandoning his research was the creation of artificial or plastic fallopian tubes.[2]
Rock retired in 1969 from his practice.
Personal life
Rock married Anna Thorndike in 1928. They raised five children.[5]
After retiring, Rock moved into a farmhouse in Temple, New Hampshire.[4] He died in Peterborough, New Hampshire on December 4, 1984, at the age of 94 from myocardial infarction.[4]
Further reading
- Eig, Jonathan (2014). The Birth of the Pill: How Four Crusaders Reinvented Sex and Launched a Revolution. W.W. Norton.
- Lader, Lawrence (April 10, 1966). "Three Men who Made a Revolution" (PDF). New York Times. Retrieved September 27, 2018.
References
- ^ a b c d "Collection: John C. Rock personal and professional papers | HOLLIS for". hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu. Retrieved December 4, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z Marsh, Margaret; Ronner, Wanda (2019). The Pursuit of Parenthood: Reproductive Technology from Test-Tube Babies to Uterus Transplants. Johns Hopkins University Press.
- ^ a b c d e American Experience (2001). "People & Events: Dr. John Rock". The Pill. PBS. Retrieved November 29, 2009.
- ^ PMID 15244378.
- ^ a b c d "Birth control pioneer born". Mass Moments. 2009. Retrieved November 29, 2009., which cites:
- McLaughlin, Loretta (1982). The pill, John Rock, and the church: the biography of a revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. ISBN 0-316-56095-2.
- McLaughlin, Loretta (1982). The pill, John Rock, and the church: the biography of a revolution. Boston: Little, Brown and Company.
- S2CID 36533080.
- ^ Rock, John (1963). "The Time Has Come: A Catholic Doctor's Proposals to End the Battle Over Birth Control".
- ^ Ewens, Hannah; Hollenbeck, Corissa (January 22, 2019). "The Truth About the 'Pope Rule' and the Seven Day Contraceptive Pill Gap".
- ^ "The Birth Control Pill A History" (PDF). Birth Control - History of the Pill: 1–14. June 2015 – via Planned Parenthood Federation of America, Inc.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "A Timeline of Contraception | American Experience | PBS". www.pbs.org. Retrieved December 3, 2021.
- S2CID 226773630.
- ^ "A Brief History of Birth Control in the U.S." Our Bodies Ourselves. Retrieved December 3, 2021.