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Department of Dermatology, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 4LP

(Received 15 October 1976)

In 1972 we suggested that -melanocyte-stimulating hormone (-MSH) had a physiological role as a sebotrophic hormone in the rat (Thody & Shuster, 1972) and it now appears that -MSH is the previously suspected but unidentified sebotrophic hormone (Thody & Shuster, 1973; Shuster & Thody, 1974).

Since previous studies have mainly been concerned with exogenous MSH we examined the effect on sebum secretion of changes in endogenous MSH secretion induced by drugs.

Adult Wistar rats were housed in a light and temperature-controlled room and maintained on tap water and Oxoid breeding diet. The following treatments were carried out for 2 weeks after which time sebum secretion was measured by the method of Archibald & Shuster (1970). (i) Trifluoperazine (Smith, Kline & French) (0·5 mg/day) was administered intraperitoneally in 0·9% saline to male rats twice