In testing carefully selected and matched series of patients with hand eczema and their controls it was concluded that: (1) patients with healed hand eczema had a normal alkali neutralization and a normal alkali resistance on their legs, provided the eczema was healed. Therefore, the value of these tests in pre-employment testings to find ‘eczematous subjects’ could not be confirmed. (2) Patients with active eczema limited to the hands have a normal alkali neutralization and alkali resistance tests on their legs. This is relevant to ‘alkali eczema’. However, when the eczema involves other areas besides the hands, the alkali resistance test done on the normal looking skin of the legs is lowered. This seems to be due to a general non-specific increased skin reactivity to irritants which is provoked by the presence of the active eczema – ‘status eczematicus’. Testing with other irritants (sodium lauryl sulphate, hydrochloric acid, benzalkonium chloride, croton oil, and sapo kalinus) showed a parallel-increased sk