GREGORY PINCUS 



nor adrenalectomy is fatal. What happens in these events is 

 that the rates of certain processes are reduced to a minimum. 

 When the need arises for a speeding up of these rates it cannot be 

 fulfilled, for the sources of the prime accelerators are gone. 

 The margins of safety afforded by hormone-paced homeostasis 

 are reduced to a minimum. But we are indeed concerned with 

 more than safety alone ; the physical and mental dullness of the 

 hypothyroid individual, the asthenia of the Addisonian, repre- 

 sent deficits in an optimal rate of living. One of the extraor- 

 dinary features of adequate hormone balance is the mental and 

 physical vigor of the organism, its adaptability, its drive. 



One of the questions to be asked therefore is whether op- 

 timal rates of living are a function of a specific balance of hor- 

 monal secretion. Must this large conflux of circulating effector 

 substances contain precise quotas of each component? What is 

 the long-run effect of even minor excesses and deficits? We have 

 developed a tolerable understanding of the daily requirements 

 for a good number of vitamins. Are there similar daily hor- 

 mone requirements? Are there individual as well as average 

 requirements? One obvious result of our assessment of vitamin 

 requirements has been the administration of adequate amounts 

 to aging individuals. Somewhat less certainly geiiatric hor- 

 mone administration is practised. But even before the obvious 

 deficiencies of age are apparent, may there not be subtler im- 

 balances contributing to inadequacies and inefficiencies of 

 general metabolism, of nervous function? In a recent study of 

 steroid excretion in over 600 men and women of various ages 

 (11), we were struck by the remarkable consistency of individual 

 secretion patterns. Each individual has a characteristic quanti- 

 tative output of certain steroids and therefore a characteristic 

 ratio of one type to another type. This consistency of personal 

 patterns has been demonstrated in fine chemical detail for the 

 individual metabolites in the urinary ketosteroid array by Dob- 

 riner and his colleagues (3). What is its significance? Broadly 

 speaking there is an implication of set secretory activity by 

 steroidogenic organs along with fixed modes of metabolism of 



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