| Hormones -- History. |
| Hormones -- Physiological effect. |
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|---|---|---|---|
Searching... Fairhaven-Millicent | 612.4 EPS 2018 | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... Foxboro - Boyden Library | 612.405 EPSTEIN | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Searching... Seekonk Public Library | 612.405 EPSTEIN | NONFICTION | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
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.
Reviews (5)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Science writer Epstein (Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank) gives readers a lucid and entertaining look at the social and scientific history of endocrinology. Epstein roots her history in people, such as 19th-century "rooster-testicle-swapping" German researcher, Arnold Berthold (1803-1861), who showed that glands released hormones into the blood rather than into the nervous system, and Park Avenue doctor Louis Berman (1893-1946) who, when he wasn't treating celebrities, wrote popular books offering hormone remedies and predicting that once Western medicine learned how to exploit the endocrine system, Earth would be full of superhumans. From using growth hormone to make children taller to in vitro fertilization and exploring what sex hormones have to do with gender identification and aging, Epstein frames science in human terms, delving into such topics as eugenics, medical errors, and scams like vasectomy as a way to boost sex drive. The author's beguiling prose ("the preservatives had evaporated through tiny cracks, so bits and bobs of brain were puckered and withered") makes for a lively and accessible introduction to hormones and the important work they do in the lives of humans. (June) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
A tour of the history of endocrinology, highlighting progress but also the hype that has promoted the curative abilities of hormones.Epstein (Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth from the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank, 2010), who has a medical degree and masters of public health, explores the long-held beliefs in the power of glandular "juices," but she credits two British researchers at the dawn of the 20th century as the founders of the science of endocrinology. Their canine experiments showed that a chemical released by the pancreas aids digestion without the involvement of the nervous system. By 1905, the word hormone had been coined, and the science took off. In successive chapters the author highlights selected hormones, but not before she introduces the "Fat Bride," a 517-pound sideshow star who, along with giants and bearded ladies, is now considered a victim of hormones gone awry. Epstein devotes a chapter to Harvey Cushing, the brain surgeon who described the hormones secreted by the pituitary gland that also stimulate secretions of other glands. By the 1920s, hormones were touted as being responsible for emotions and behaviors. The '20s also saw the launch of a long fad for vasectomies, touted as the sure cure for declining libido and other aging male ills. Later chapters also deal with sexual themes. At one time, it was decided that babies born with ambiguous sexual organs should be assigned either a male or female sex designation and have corrective surgery in the first year of life. This is wrong, given current understanding of the complexity of sex determinants; Epstein makes this clear in a sensitive chapter on trans individuals. As for the sex hormones themselves, the hype continues. Not so long ago, estrogen was the dream hormone that would cure hot flashes and ward off heart disease and Alzheimer's. It's true for hot flashes, but forget the rest. As for the virtues of testosterone, the hype goes on.A fine, poignant survey of "what makes us human, from the inside out." Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Insulin, growth hormone, cortisol, the tyrosine-based thyroid hormones, and adrenaline are a few of the many hormones that maintain the body's balance. Physician Epstein winningly writes about the science of endocrinology, the history of hormone science, and the individuals pivotal to our understanding of the chemical substances that make us who we are. Hormones influence metabolism, behavior, immunity, sleep, growth, the fight-or-flight response, and sex. They are secreted by multiple glands, including the hypothalamus, pineal, pituitary, thyroid, parathyroids, pancreas, adrenals, ovaries, and testes. Estrogen and testosterone are of course the sexy stars of this book: the chemical triggers of arousal, the yin and yang of sexuality. Yet testicles and ovaries each produce both estrogen and testosterone. And surprisingly, these hormones differ from one another merely by one oxygen and one hydrogen atom. We also learn that humans and perhaps killer whales are the only mammalian species afflicted by hot flashes. Superb chapters include Growing Up and Growing Pains (which discuss curing short stature and an early treatment tragedy) and Hotheads: The Mysteries of Menopause and Testosterone Endopreneurs (which examine the continuing controversies surrounding the use of prescription medications to supplement low levels of estrogen and testosterone). Aroused is indeed stimulating reading: instructive, thought provoking, and fun.--Miksanek, Tony Copyright 2010 Booklist
New York Review of Books Review
THIS IS A well-written and informative book about the history of hormone research. The interested reader will learn how scientists have come to understand what hormones are and how they function. But it is also deeply disturbing: for what this history entails, for how the author tells it and for what she leaves out. "Aroused" is organized around scientific and medical episodes from the 19th century to the present, many of which involved dubious and unethical practices. Among the central characters are doctors who promoted vasectomy to enhance male youthfulness, who operated on patients without their knowledge and who experimented on their own children. Randi Hutter Epstein, the author of "Get Me Out: A History of Childbirth From the Garden of Eden to the Sperm Bank," tells us of a journalist paid by a doctor to ghostwrite glowing articles about testosterone therapy and of a physician who kept a 17-month-old baby boy in the hospital for a month while he performed experimental genital surgery without parental support; the doctor then sent the child home instructing the parents to expunge all evidence that "she" was ever a "he." Even more disturbing than reading about these practices is that for the most part Epstein shrugs them off, saying that the physicians involved were well intentioned, that what they did was appropriate for their day or that they did what they could with the information they had. These were the "best practices of the time." It was "just the way things were." But that's not quite true: Some of these practices were questioned even at the time. And it doesn't take hindsight to recognize hubris. In a chapter titled "Pickled Brains," Epstein seems to delight in the macabre spectacle of abandoned organs in a university basement. The brains were collected for research in the early 20th century; she notes that to handle them now requires compliance with biohazard regulations yet she fails to explain why. Neither does she tarry much over the ethical medical treatment of human remains. Consider Charles Byrne, the so-called Irish giant who in the late 19 th century became the object of public attention. Byrne anticipated that after his death, physicians would want to study and perhaps display his body, so he instructed friends to seal his coffin and dispose of it in the ocean. They agreed, but Byrne's directive was circumvented when the prominent physician John Hunter arranged for the cadaver to be stolen and the skeleton displayed in the Hunterian Museum, London, where it remains today. Numerous historians, ethicists and laypeople have objected to the continued thwarting of Byrne's wishes; Epstein reduces this complex and important matter to a footnote. Epstein contrasts "quackery" with "legitimate research," and "craziness" with "serious science," but the crucial question of how to distinguish between them is unaddressed. Many of the dodgy practices she describes were undertaken by credentialed medical doctors and scientists. Today, testosterone therapy for virility is endorsed by people with medical degrees, but there is little evidence of its efficacy. Epstein offers no guidance on how we might evaluate the untested or otherwise problematic therapies on offer today. If we were to adopt her stance that this is "just the way things are," we would have no way to judge, and therefore no basis on which to object to current dubious practices. Epstein also elides the problem of hormone-disrupting chemicals. Among the reasons hormones long eluded scientific understanding is that they can be effective at minuscule doses, and the body is acutely sensitive to when those doses are released. One of the great advances of late-20th-century science was to understand this; another was to recognize that some synthetic chemicals - most notoriously the pesticide DDT but also many others - can mimic hormones with great adverse effect. (DDT was banned in part because it was killing bald eagles by disrupting their reproduction.) These chemicals are toxic, but not in the way that lead or mercury or arsenic is. Rather, they alter endocrine function: hence the moniker endocrine-disrupting chemicals or EDCs. The human health effects of EDCs are not entirely understood, but the list of potential problems is long: prostate and breast cancer, infertility, fibroids, endometriosis, male and female reproductive dysfunction, birth defects, disrupted immune function, obesity, diabetes, cardiopulmonary disease, neurobehavioral and learning dysfunctions like autism, hermaphroditism and alternation of sexual identity in animals. One estimate places the cost of the disease burden at $340 billion. Surely a book on the history of hormone research should have something to say about that.
Library Journal Review
Hormones regulate most of the body's physiological processes. Metabolism, immunity, sleep, mood, sexual development and desire, and the ability to fight and flee from danger all depend on them. Epstein, a physician at Yale and Columbia, presents a history of the scientific discoveries that led to knowledge of the existence of these powerful substances. The author introduces the colorful researchers who performed experiments that would never be permitted with current ethical regulations: William Bayliss and Ernest Starling, who discovered the role of the pancreas in digestion and angered anti-vivisectionists in the process; Louis Berman, who thought that hormones caused criminal behavior; and Eugen Steinach, who touted vasectomies to preserve male strength. Readers learn of snake oil cures and the important therapeutic roles that hormones play. Transplanting goat testicles led to disaster, but using insulin for diabetes and replacing thyroid and adrenal hormones when they are deficient saves lives. VERDICT An engaging book of medical history that teaches readers about important aspects of physiology.-Barbara Bibel, formerly Oakland P.L. © Copyright 2018. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Table of Contents
| Introduction | p. xi |
| 1 The Fat Bride | p. 1 |
| 2 Hormones ... As We May Call Them | p. 14 |
| 3 Pickled Brains | p. 34 |
| 4 Killer Hormones | p. 54 |
| 5 The Virile Vasectomy | p. 72 |
| 6 Soul Mates in Sex Hormones | p. 89 |
| 7 Making Gender | p. 102 |
| 8 Growing Up | p. 126 |
| 9 Measuring the Immeasurable | p. 148 |
| 10 Growing Pains | p. 160 |
| 11 Hotheads: The Mysteries of Menopause | p. 174 |
| 12 Testosterone Endopreneurs | p. 194 |
| 13 Oxytocin; That Levin' Feeling | p. 214 |
| 14 Transitioning | p. 230 |
| 15 Insatiable: The Hypothalamus and Obesity | p. 246 |
| Epilogue | p. 257 |
| Acknowledgments | p. 261 |
| Notes | p. 267 |
| Index | p. 299 |