For Women Only

Last week gynecologists marked well a curious new synthetic drug called stilbestrol. A specific for various disorders, stilbestrol works like natural female sex hormone. Dr. Charles Mazer of Philadelphia and two colleagues told about the new drug in the A. M. A.'s Journal.

Natural hormones are costly, are much less effective when given by mouth than by injection. So researchers are constantly looking for a synthetic substitute without these drawbacks. Three years ago, said Dr. Mazer, when a group of Oxford biochemists announced the synthesis of stilbestrol, "the product was welcomed for clinical trial with guarded hopefulness throughout the world."

Now it has had its trial, proved several times more potent than natural hormone, easily absorbable from the stomach. It relieves menopause symptoms, some sick headaches, menstrual disorders; it works with insulin to keep down the blood sugar of diabetics; it dries up milk production in women who cannot nurse their babies. Stilbestrol has one disadvantage: some women cannot take ample doses without showing toxic symptoms--vomiting, pains, rashes, diarrhea.

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