TESTING THE EFFICIENCY OF DEODORANTS 115 8. There is no indication that the judge or judges were unaware of whether each athlete was in group 1, 2, or 3. 9. There were no placebos used for group 3. 10. There is no indication that the athletes were themselves unaware of what they were using, and no precautions were taken to prevent their prejudice during the test. 11. There is no indication that the individual athlete or athletes were fetested by the same judge or judges to determine the reproducibility of the readings. However, these and other errors would be relatively minor, if it were not for the fact that the authors completely misunderstand the meaning of their own statistics. They draw conclusions therefrom directly contrary to their own findings, and they overlook conclusions that are substantiated by the findings. The authors conclude from the above: "Table 1 shows a greater increase of measurable underarm odor following the use for 48 hours of untreated chlorophyll, copper chlorophyl], and no chlorophyll. This test followed a six-day period of medication with the specially prepared chlorophyll. "The specially prepared chlorophyllins effectively reduced the underarm odor before and after vigorous basketball exercise in the 20 college students tested using 200 rag. daily." Now, what does Table ] actually show? The only thing that can be concluded from the meager statistics provided is this--that if copper chloro- phyllin reduced underarm body odor, then nature's untreated chlorophyll increased the underarm odor to about the same extent. Furthermore, the small differences between those who took chlorophyllins and the controls who took nothing were almost completely wiped out by a period of exercise, with the odor of those on chlorophyllins increasing during the exercise period more than that of the others. Table 1, in fact, indicates that when students were divided into the three groups, those taking copper chloro- phyllin increased in body odor to a greater degree--whether measured in percentage or in absolute figures--than those on nature's untreated chloro- phyll and those on control. But nothing of that sort is even hinted at by the authors, who can only draw the conclusion that specially prepared chlorophyllins "effectively reduce the measurable underarm odor both in industrial workers and in college athletes." Allow me to warn that I am not drawing a conclusion from this brief glance at the literature that chlorophyll has no value as a deodorant. I am merely demonstrating that its value has definitely not been proved. The great mass of the work on the deodorant effect of chlorophyll must be ex- cluded from the realm of scientifically acceptable experimentation. Maybe chlorophyll does work wonders, maybe not. No conclusion is justified save that, if it is of value, this has not yet been experimentally shown.

116 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS Let us pass from chlorophyll to hexachlorophene. The latter is so unlike the former that one can hardly make a comparison. Whereas there is no theory of how chlorophyll works, but a mass of documentary evidence, of poor caliber, it is true, to show that it does act as a deodorant, when one turns to hexacfilorophene, one enconnters considerable theoretical founda- tion and an almost complete vacuum of experimental evidence. The theory behind the use of hexachlorophene as a deodorant is some- what as follows: that odors of the body are caused not by the inherent smell of fresh and clean perspiration, but by the bacterial decomposition of that perspiration that takes place after it has made contact with the skin. If the skin could be maintained free of all bacteria, no body odor would result. This is impossible, it is freely admitted, but, it is then assumed, if the bac- terial count on the skin is kept low, the odor will be slight. An effective bactericide, therefore, reduces the bacterial growth, hence reduces the de- composition resulting therefrom, and therefore reduces the odor. Before examining such a theory, let us state that even if it were beyond the realm of our imagination to conceive of a fallacy therein, it would still be scientifically inacceptable to replace the experimental method by theory, syllogism, assumption, and conjecture. The history of sci4nce is strewn with the dead bodies of enthusiastic workers who brought forth the most remarkable and fantastic theories, against which no argumentation at the time could be found, but which did not work when subjected to practice. The essential difference between the age of science and that of alchemy is that the experimentally unproved theory is inacceptable until such time as it can be substantiated or disproved. It is true that a theory involving the realm of odor does not lend itself to easy proof, but scientists worthy of the name have reiterated that it is precisely those theories most difficult to translate into experiment that one is under the greatest obligation to examine with the utmost skepticism. The difficulty of substantiating a theory is not an invitation to accept it on blind faith, but is merely a warning that one most not rush forward with irresponsibility to make claims for a product the value of which is most doubtful. It is ironical that the apologists for hexachlorophene should have ever developed the viewpoint of theory without experimentation, for the fact that this substance retains its germicidal power in soap was, in fact, dis- covered in complete contradiction to everything that previous theory would have indicated. Had they accepted the view that a theoretical considera- tion is sufficient to indicate the abilities or lack of abilities, the properties or lack of properties of a material, then Drs. Kunz and Gump would never have placed this phenol into a bar of soap to see if it still retained its germi- cidal value. The theory behind the use of hexachlorophene as a deodorant has so