386 JOURNAL OF THE SOCIETY OF COSMETIC CHEMISTS think they are particularly designed for the type of people we are talking about here. Now what are some of the specific effects of estrogen--and the physio!ogic effects. Well, it is one of the most interesting studies we have ever encountered, and we are learning more about it every day. There are scientific papers available showing that estrogenic creams actually will do a good job. They will actually make the skin look better and younger, add to its appearance, and perhaps mark off some of the years that have invaded the skin. Now this, however, is much more important and that is, what effect, if any, does estrogen, when administered systemically or estrogen as elaborated by the female ovary, have on the physiology of man-- and I mean both men and women because it is a fact that a healthy young man will secrete estrogen as well as androgen and a healthy young woman will secrete both the male and the female hormones. The ratio, the pre- ponderance, between the two, of course, is reversed in the sexes. But a perfectly normal, child-bearing young woman will secrete androgen as well as estrogen. Now to go back to about the time when estrogen first became available in crystalline form for use in medicine and later for use in cosmetics, at about 1920, the deaths per 100,000 of population from cardiovascular dis- ease was almost the same in men as in women. It was something about 500 per 100,000. The rate of cardiovascular deaths in females has gone steadily downward since 1920 until in 1950 it was only about 350 instead of around 500. Whereas the male has remained about the same, perhaps it is a little higher today. Now that means this--we know in clinical medi- cine, for example, that women in child-bearing ages do not die of heart dis- ease. It is a rare thing--they do not have it--you do not find one collaps- ing-hear of a sudden death--and so forth. I would say "never," but there is no such thing in medicine as "always," or "never." As a general rule, though, women do not have heart disease until they are past meno- pause when the secretion of estrogen in the body has been lowered. Now you cannot just take two facts like that and put them together and say you have the answer. There has been an increase in the consumption of cigar- ettes in this country during the past twenty years and there has been an increase in the incidence of lung cancer, but you cannot put tho'se two to- gether and say that smoking causes lung cancer. Research today is pointed along the lines of finding out what is going to happen to the cardiovascular system in a great many of these people if we use estrogen after the body has ceased to secrete it. We are beginning to learn that it does have some effect on blood lipids, for example, blood cholesterol. There is a very big field here for continuing research over a number of years, and we hope some day to find the answer, but the fact is that man dies suddenly of heart disease hut the woman generally does not until she passes the menopause. There is one thing that I would like to say about the aging population and that is

SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS OF SKIN GERIATRICS 387 this, in closing. These people who are forcibly retired are frequently in difficulty because they are not prepared for it, they don't know what to do, so they wander around like lost souls. It is imperative that we realize that these people are important, that they must not be neglected and they must not be forgotten. Everybody is important. There is no such thing as an unimportant person. We hope, furthermore, that you in cosmetic science will provide the ways and means so that all the people can look a lot younger if we can make them feel younger. You have certainly done a grand job up to date, and I wish you success in the future. THE MERCAPTAN-DISULFIDE SYSTEM IN PERMANENT WAVING* By Ross WHITMAN Raymond Laboratories, Inc., St. Paul 1, Minn. EDITORS NOTE: In the first half of his paper Whitman presented a three-way equation to describe human hair in any degree of reduction or neutralization: (A) (B) (C) WSSW • WSH q- WSSR WSSR WSH (E) (D) in which WSSW indicates the cystine bond in keratin, WSH indicates a cysteine terminal linkage arising from the breaking of a WSSW, and WSSR indicates a mixed disulfide cystine terminal group, the R representing the body of the mercaptan reducing agent used in the process. Going on, the speaker developed five equations which, when solved si- multaneously by conventional methods, yield values for each of the five components shown in this equilibrium: (1) (Cystine)o = A q- B/2 q- C/2 q- D/2 q- E/2 (2) (Cystine)•na•. = A q- C q- E (3) B+E = C+ D (4) (Cysteine)an•. = B + D + E + C B E (5) B:E = D:C The juxtaposition of the terminal groups formed by the severance of the cystinc bond was described by the speaker, and the following three equa- * Presented at the September 23, 1954, Seminar, New York City.