The Huggins discovery and the Hunter observations have found independent confirmation in three colorful areas of special interest: (1) the eunuchs of China, who were raised to guard the emperor's harem, (2) the castrati singers of Italy, who were raised to sing alto in the church choir and (3) the guevedoces (literally, "penis at 12") of the Dominican Republic, who through an inherited deficiency of the enzyme 5-alpha reductase, lived into adulthood with undeveloped prostates. Detailed study of the latter group eventually led to discovery of the drug, finasteride (Proscar), now used throughout the world to treat men with symptomatic benign prostatic hyperplasia. A USRF study published in 1997 first clarified the effects of finasteride on prostate tissue of man.
