Chemical Studies on the Adrenal Cortex

In Paper II of this series (1) we described the isolation from adrenal extracts of four crystalline, nitrogen-free compounds, which were found to be physiologically inactive when tested on the adrenalectomized dog. Three of these compounds, besides others not encountered by us, have meanwhile been obtained independently by Reichstein (2) ;I the fourth is apparently identical with the substance designated as the adrenal cortical hormone by Kendall, Mason, McKenzie, Myers, and Koelsche (3). Analytical data obtained on these compounds in the various laboratories indicated the presence of 21 carbon atoms, and 5 oxygen atoms with varying functions. Reichstein subsequently showed that at least three of the compounds of this series (his Compounds A, C, and D) could be degraded to the same diketone C19H2~--2803, which possesses trong male sex hormone action and is in all probability closely related to androstanedione (4). This highly important observation, besides revealing a chemical relationship which might be concerned in the clinical syndrome of adrenal virilism, can be taken as strong presumptive evidence that the afore-