Editing Peter Medawar (section)

=== Theory on endocrine evolution ===
Medawar presented a talk on [[viviparity]] in animals (the phenomenon by which some animals give live birth) at a meeting on evolution at Oxford in July 1952.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.endocrinology.org/endocrinologist/121-autumn16/features/medawars-dictum-on-endocrine-evolution-a-case-of-mistaken-identity/|title=Medawar's dictum on endocrine evolution: a case of mistaken identity?|last=Peaker|first=Malcolm|date=2016|website=endocrinology.org|access-date=2020-02-16|archive-date=16 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200216064917/https://www.endocrinology.org/endocrinologist/121-autumn16/features/medawars-dictum-on-endocrine-evolution-a-case-of-mistaken-identity/|url-status=dead}}</ref> Later published in 1953, he introduced an aphorism:

<blockquote>Endocrine evolution is not an evolution of hormones but an evolution of the uses to which they are put; an evolution not, to put it crudely, of chemical formulae but of reactivities, reaction patterns and tissue competences.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Medawar|first=P.B.|date=1953|title=Some immunological and endocrinological problems raised by the evolution of viviparity in vertebrates|journal=Symposia of the Society for Experimental Biology|volume=7|pages=320–338}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Venter|first1=J|last2=Diporzio|first2=U|last3=Robinson|first3=D|last4=Shreeve|first4=S|last5=Lai|first5=J|last6=Kerlavage|first6=A|last7=Fracekjr|first7=S|last8=Lentes|first8=K|last9=Fraser|first9=C|date=1988|title=Evolution of neurotransmitter receptor systems|journal=Progress in Neurobiology|language=en|volume=30|issue=2–3|pages=105–169|doi=10.1016/0301-0082(88)90004-4|pmid=2830635|s2cid=42118786}}</ref></blockquote>

The notion that evolution and diversity of endocrine function in animals are due to different uses of each hormone rather than different hormones themselves became an established fact.<ref>{{Citation|last=Renfree|first=Marilyn B.|chapter=Endocrinology of Pregnancy, Parturition and Lactation in Marsupials|date=1994|pages=677–766|editor-last=Lamming|editor-first=G. E.|publisher=Springer Netherlands|language=en|doi=10.1007/978-94-011-1286-4_7|isbn=978-94-010-4561-2|title=Marshall's Physiology of Reproduction}}</ref> The paper is also regarded as a pioneer in the field of [[reproductive immunology]].<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Croy|first=B Anne|date=2014|title=Reproductive Immunology Issue One: Cellular and Molecular Biology|journal=Cellular & Molecular Immunology|language=en|volume=11|issue=5|pages=405–406|doi=10.1038/cmi.2014.64|pmc=4197211|pmid=25066420}}</ref>