Significance of Sex Hormones in Tanning of the Skin of Women

Abstract

As illustrated in castrated and eunuchoid men, tanning of the human skin is abetted by the presence and negated by the absence of effective levels of male hormone substances in the body tissues and fluids. 1 Pending completion of analyses of urinary hormone titers and spectrophotometric study of skin pigmentation, the present report will serve to indicate that both the tanning process and its dependence on hormones for photograph-like “development” are (a) somewhat similar in women to those described for men, (b) capable of induction in women by male hormone substance, and (c) influenced by female as well as by male hormones.

Observations were made of the skin color of 5 women who received estrogenic or androgenic hormone substance. All complained of attacks of hot flushes and, with variation from individual to individual, some degree of additional malaise. Two of the women were considered to have reached the menopause and had not menstruated for the past 6 months. Two others had undergone bilateral ovariectomy, and the fifth had a hysterectomy done late in the third decade.

Three of the women received intramuscular injections of estrone† from 2 to 3 times weekly, a total of 14,000, 20,000, and 25,000 I. U., respectively, being administered over a period of one month in doses varied according to the degree of control over the hot flushes. The other 2 women were given testosterone propionate† by Doctor Edward Cravener as a possible treatment of arthritic conditions which had failed to respond to the customary therapeutic measures. The dose was 20 mg of testosterone propionate in 1 cc of peanut oil given intramuscularly from 1 to 3 times weekly for 3 weeks.