Review on skin and mucous-membrane irritation tests and their application

The history and present state of routine testing for skin and eye irritation are reviewed. Various changes to the traditional Draize test have been proposed by a number of workers, and it is concluded that the adoption of the modified Draize test should be the first decisive step to be taken in the search for new methods in irritation testing. Other new methods, such as testing using organ and cell cultures, and determination of the relationship between physico-chemical properties and irritative potential, have been reported. Although at present these techniques require further validation, some of them show considerable promise of reliably predicting the irritative effects of substances on humans.