Aroused

The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything

23 July 2019

Description

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

Metabolism, behaviour, 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.

Reviews

"A rollicking history certain to get your intellectual and physiologic juices flowing. Adrenaline-tinged tales and hot flashes of history—just what the doctor ordered." — Lisa Sanders, Diagnosis columnist, New York Times Magazine

"A sweeping, glorious story of hormones, threaded through with sex, suffering, neurology, biology, medicine and self-discovery, Randi Hutter Epstein’s book manages to excite the imagination as well as calm it. The story is grippingly told, and Epstein manages to bring a whole system of science alive to her reading public." — Siddhartha Mukherjee

"Hormones may be ringmasters of the bodily circus, controlling everything from sex to metabolic function, but in this invigorating history they become stars of the show." — Nature

"Congratulations to my friend @randihepstein on the publication of her book! I loved reading it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in public health or your own health!" — Chelsea Clinton

"I’m hitting up the public library for two. The first is Randi Hutter Epstein’s Aroused: The history of hormones and how they control just about everything (Norton), which I hope will answer the most banal of questions as I continue my reluctant march through midlife: What the hell is happening to me?" — Jennie Erin Smith, Summer Books 2018, Times Literary Supplement

"The field of endocrinology, as this compelling history shows, has manifested extremes of ingenuity and hubristic error." — The New Yorker

"A well-written and informative book on the history of hormone research." — The New York Times Book Review

"Here, a leading medical writer and professor at Yale University uncovers the true science of hormones and looks back into the basements, labs and back rooms where the study of endocrinology began." — What to Read, Mail on Sunday

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Paperback

9780393357080

140 x 208 mm • 336 pages

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9780393651119

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