Short answers, pulled from the story.
Clinical trials began using anabolic steroids to treat human patients in 1937. Physicians used methyltestosterone pills and testosterone propionate injections to treat conditions like aplastic anemia or leukemia during this period.
Anabolic steroids serve as treatments for hypoplastic anemias caused by kidney failure, severe growth failure in children, and muscle wasting in cancer patients receiving chemotherapy. Doctors also prescribe these drugs to burn victims to improve survival rates and to postmenopausal women to prevent osteoporosis.
Between one million and three million people use anabolic steroids without medical supervision in the United States. A 2000 study found that twenty percent of teenagers aged twelve to seventeen used these substances primarily for cosmetic appearance rather than sports competition.
Adolf Butenandt purified fifteen milligrams of androstenone from urine in 1931, and Leopold Ružička synthesized this steroid chemically two years later. Karoly Gyula David, E. Dingemanse, J. Freud, and Ernst Laqueur published findings identifying crystalline male hormone from testicles in May 1935.
The United States classifies anabolic steroids as Schedule III controlled substances under the Controlled Substances Act enacted in the late 1980s. Simple possession without a prescription carries penalties of up to one year imprisonment for first offenses in federal court.