Mood swings, metabolism, behavior, sleep, the immune system, puberty, and sex—these are only some of the things controlled by hormones. Armed with a dose of wit and curiosity, medical journalist Randy Hutter Epstein takes us on a fully intriguing journey through the astonishingly captivating history of these powerful chemicals—from the chilly nineteenth-century basement full of brains to a luxurious hormone clinic of the twenty-first century in Los Angeles.