I believe that the Mattachine Foundation could best achieve their goals and conclusively demonstrate their sincerity of purpose not by the defensive approach of saying, "see how many brilliant people are in our group" or 'see how harmless we are", etc., but by being the first to begin to explain scientifically WHAT THEY ARE. Such a positive approach could be the beginning of a great movement in the right direction. If any field, facts speak for themselves, but without them there remain only theories, emotions and intuition, which impress no one except a few who might find it temporarily convenient to agree.

I have taken the liberty of presenting a physician's view of your work I would be very glad to hear the reaction of your readers to these ideas. You may print all or part of this letter with signature, if you wish.

Sincerely,

Philip M. West, M.D.

In relation to the above, the statea consistent pattern of chemical activity wide program is being carried forward in the blood which might reflect the with funds supplied by the Legislature, building up of tension preceding sex in an effort to determine whether scientideviation. fic means can be found to detect and control potentially dangerous sex deviates. This project is directed by Dr. A. R. Mangus of the Langley Porter clinic in San Francisco.

The local biochemical research involves two phases:

The first phase, under investigation by Dr. Josephine Garst, is concerned with certain body compounds known as the 17-ketosteroids. These compounds are products of the adrenal gland and the male gonads. Some of them are metabolic products of the male hormone, testos-

terone.

Dr. Garst is exploring a possible relationship of these compounds to sex deviation.

Mrs. Jessamine Hilliard is investigating the second phase of the research with the intent of discovering if there is

Mrs. Hilliard has established a laboratory in the sex psychopath wards at the Norwalk hospital where frequent biochemical tests of patients can be made. Psychiatrists and psycholigists interview the patients in an effort to correlate revealed anxiety with blood test patterns, it was reported.

The university reported there is presently no evidence to indicate that a simple blood test might be developed which would identify sex offenders or predict the tension build-up which precedes an offense.

However, it is believed a blood test might be useful in reflecting how the deviate responds to certain stresses and

to treatment.

The test would be useful in an overall screen program for sex deviates, the researchers believe.

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