Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything

Randi Hutter Epstein

ISBN 10: 0393239608 / ISBN 13: 9780393239607

Published by W. W. Norton & Company, 2018

About this Item

2018. 1st Edition. Hardcover. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland.

Seller Inventory # V9780393239607

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0393239608
• ISBN 13: 9780393239607
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

A guided tour through the strange science of hormones and the age-old quest to control them.

Metabolism, behavior, sleep, mood swings, the immune system, fighting, fleeing, puberty, and sex: these are just a few of the things our bodies control with hormones. Armed with a healthy dose of wit and curiosity, medical journalist Randi Hutter Epstein takes us on a journey through the unusual history of these potent chemicals from a basement filled with jarred nineteenth-century brains to a twenty-first-century hormone clinic in Los Angeles.

Brimming with fascinating anecdotes, illuminating new medical research, and humorous details, Aroused introduces the leading scientists who made life-changing discoveries about the hormone imbalances that ail us, as well as the charlatans who used those discoveries to peddle false remedies. Epstein exposes the humanity at the heart of hormone science with her rich cast of characters, including a 1920s doctor promoting vasectomies as a way to boost libido, a female medical student who discovered a pregnancy hormone in the 1940s, and a mother who collected pituitaries, a brain gland, from cadavers as a source of growth hormone to treat her son. Along the way, Epstein explores the functions of hormones such as leptin, oxytocin, estrogen, and testosterone, demystifying the science of endocrinology.

A fascinating look at the history and science of some of medicine’s most important discoveries, Aroused reveals the shocking history of hormones through the back rooms, basements, and labs where endocrinology began.

10 illustrations

About the Author

Randi Hutter Epstein, M.D., M.P.H., the author of Aroused and Get Me Out, is an adjunct professor at Columbia University, a lecturer at Yale University, and writer in residence at Yale Medical School. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times and the Psychology Today blog, among others. She lives in New York.