Aroused: The History of Hormones and How They Control Just About Everything
By Randi Hutter Epstein

I’ve been fascinated by hormones ever since my mother purchased a copy of the kid book, The Body in Action: The Parts of the Body and How They Work when I was a kid in single digits.

I loved this book and read it repeatedly. Unfortunately, during many moves, I managed to lose my copy, but I was fortunate enough to purchase a pdf copy many years ago. The book was as great as I remember it to be.

Anyway, what really caught my attention was the section on hormones and the idea they were “ductless” glands – that is, the glands released the hormones directly into the bloodstream as opposed to releasing them through ducts, such as sweat glands.

As someone who loves medical history and anatomy and physiology, I’ve read a lot of books and know a lot about the subject, so it’s a rare treat when I manage to learn something new. I wouldn’t say that this is an exhaustive discussion about hormones, but she managed to hit the pertinent highlights.

I will caution the reader that her description of the early days of hormone research is rather graphic as this was during the time of antivivisectionists – those tireless opponents of experimenting on live animals who didn’t have the benefit of being under anesthesia. Despite knowing about the subject, I still found some of the descriptions a bit disturbing.

I really enjoyed reading the book, and as I mentioned above, I learned several new facts. I would highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the subject because I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

5/5