This was more or less the second Anabolic Steroid ever produced. The first, as we all know was Testosterone, which was produced in the early 1900´s and experimented with by Nazi´s in WW2, in an attempt to produce a better soldier.

Russian athletes in the 1953 World Championships as well as the Olympic games then used testosterone with great success. After that, John Zeigler, who was a doctor working with the US Weightlifting Team, began a cooperative project with Ciba to develop an equalizer for US atheletes. Flash forward to 1956 and enter Dianabol ; the original trade name for Ciba´s Methandrostenolone... but called "Dbol" by athletes.

The original package insert said that 10mgs/day was enough to provide full androgen replacement for a man and Dr.Zeigler recommended that athletes take 5-10mgs/day. Incidentally, this is also the dose that Bodybuilders were reputed to take from then until roughly the 1970´s. Yeah, this was allegedly Arnold´s dose, Zane´s dose, etc... simply stacked with some testosterone. (For any trivia buffs out there, Dan Duchaine´s mail order steroid business operated under the name "The John Zeigler Fan Club").