TOXIC EFFECTS OF PERCUTANEOUSLY ABSORBED ESTROGENS

The fact that steroid hormones, particularly estrogens, can pass through the skin is well known, but the potential dangers of this route of absorption have not been noted previously. For this reason, we believe that the case reported here is of considerable theoretical as well as practical interest.

REPORT OF A CASE  The patient, a 44 year old Scotsman, presented himself with the complaint of impotence of four months' duration. He had been married for twenty-three years and had fathered four children. His sexual activity had always been regular and satisfactory. Eighteen months before seeking medical advice he had started working as a chemist for a small pharmaceutic concern; his assignment was to extract and purify estrogenic substances from pregnancy urine. During this process his hands came in frequent contact with alcoholic solutions of high estrogenic potency, and he also admitted that occasionally he scraped freshly crystallized estrogenic materials from