THE HORMONES IN HUMAN REPRODUCTION 



postage stamp. The same year (1934) Butenandt and two 

 colleagues succeeded in making the hormone synthetically by 

 chemical manipulation and rearrangement of a better known 

 and more widely available sterol and thus confirmed the for- 

 mula. 



The chemistry of progesterone. This hormone is also a 

 sterol, and is put together in a way not greatly unlike the 

 estrogenic substances. Students of organic chemistry will 

 recognize it as 3, 20 diketo 4, 5 pregnene : 



PROGESTERONE 



A more detailed explanation of its chemical relationships will 

 be found in Appendix I. This substance has not yet been 

 synthesized from simple materials, but it has been made by 

 rearranging the structure of somewhat more complicated 

 sterols built up by plants and animals. For some years a 

 vegetable sterol from soy beans was the most readily available 

 source for the synthetic chemist, but it is now being made 

 from cholesterol, which occurs plentifully in the spinal cord 

 of oxen. 



The name 'progesterone. It finally became necessary to 

 name this substance, even before we knew what it was, in order 

 to avoid long phrases in talking about it. Our experiments 

 had proved that its effects are progestational, i.e. it favors 

 gestation; for this reason I decided, with Willard Allen's 

 approval, to call it progestin. This word is easy to spell and 

 pronounce in many tongues, means something but not too 

 much, and did not commit us to any theories that might prove 

 untenable later. When the exact chemical nature of the hor- 



( 116 } 



