20 



THE STEROID HORMONES 



GREGORY PINCUS, visiting professor of experimental biology, 



CLARK university; director of laboratories, the WORCESTER 

 foundation FOR EXPERIMENTAL BIOLOGY 



THE MODERN biochemistry of the steroid hormones had 

 its inception in 1929 with the isolation of estrone from 

 human pregnancy urine by Doisy and by Butenandt. The previous 

 findings of Fellner, and of Doisy and Allen, that active ovarian mate- 

 rial was probably lipid in nature, and the discovery by Aschheim and 

 Zondek of larger amounts of folliculoid activity in lipid fractions of 

 human pregnancy urine paved the way for the simultaneous chemical 

 identifications of estrone in the United States and Germany. In the 

 fifteen years that followed, the organic chemistry of the steroid hor- 

 mones has developed explosively. Naturally occurring and synthetic 

 substances having testoid, folliculoid, luteoid, and corticoid effects have 

 been obtained in profusion. * 



On the basis of the effects of these compounds, new techniques 

 in clinical medicine have developed. The nature of sex determina- 

 tion, pubertal growth and sexual involution have been delineated 

 experimentally with the aid of the steroid sex hormones. The avail- 

 ability of active corticoid steroid substances has led to a notable 

 elucidation of the hormonal control of electrolyte and water balances, 



* The terminology suggested by Selye (10) will be used throughout this 

 chapter. Testoid is synonymous with androgenic, folliculoid with estrogenic or 

 gynecogenic, luteoid with progestational or luteogenic, and corticoid with adreno- 

 corticoid. 



