OXIDATION PRODUCT OF STILBESTROL

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Abstract
ON THE basis of various lines of evidence accumulated in the study of estrogen metabolism in women and in rodents, Smith and Smith (1941, 1946, 1948) have postulated that estrogenically inactive oxidation products of the estrogens, rather than estrogens per se, are directly responsible for the release of pituitary tropic factors. One line of evidence for this concept lay in the finding (Smith, 1944) that the presence of the testes or the simultaneous administration of progesterone to the castrate prevented the release of adrenotropic and gonadotropic factors from the pituitary following estrone administration to mature male rats. Progesterone, testosterone and adrenal cortical extract, in sufficient dosages, have been found to suppress the in vivo inactivation of the estrogens (see Smith, 1944, footnote 2, for references, and Segaloff, 1947). The observations in estrone treated rats, therefore, were interpreted as further support for the hypothesis that estrone increased the output of pituitary