| Summary: | A large number of 17-ketosteroids have been found in the urine since the first one vas isolated almost thirty-five years ago. Butenandt and his co-workers in 1931 (1) first isolated a crystalline steroid with androgenic activity from a chloroform extract of normal male urine which had been hydrolysed with acid and subsequently identified it as androsterone in 1934 (2). In the same year, these authors described the isolation of dehydroisoandrosterone from urine. (3) In 1938 Butler and Marrian (4) reported the isolation of two other 17-ketosteroids, etiocholanolone and isoandrosterone, from a large quantity of unhydrolysed urine excreted by a woman with an adrenocortical tumour. The isolation of etiocholanolone from the urine of a normal male subject was reported by Callow (5) in 1939.
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