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Aroused

The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything

Randi Hutter Epstein

$27.95

Paperback

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English
Norton
19 July 2019
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
By:  
Imprint:   Norton
Country of Publication:   United States
Dimensions:   Height: 211mm,  Width: 142mm,  Spine: 23mm
Weight:   305g
ISBN:   9780393357080
ISBN 10:   0393357082
Pages:   336
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

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.

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

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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