The most secret quintessence of life
Subtitle: sex, glands, and hormones, 1850-1950
By: Chandak Sengoopta.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 2006
Place of publication: Chicago
Language: eng
Number of pages: 354
Subjects: Hormones, Sex -- Research -- History -- 19th century; Hormones, Sex -- Research -- History -- 20th century; Hormones, Sex -- Physiological effect; Reproduction -- Endocrine aspects; Aging -- Endocrine aspects; Gonads -- Physiology; Sex (Biology); Gonadal Hormones -- history; Gonads -- physiology; Aging -- physiology; Endocrinology -- history; History, 19th Century; History, 20th Century; Sex
Description: "Through a series of case studies drawn from Central Europe, the United States, and Britain, The Most Secret Quintessence of Life explores how the notion of sex hormones enabled scientists to remap the human body, encouraging hopes that glandular interventions could cure ills, malfunctions, and even social deviance in ways inconceivable to previous generations. Many of these dreams failed, but their history, Chandak Sengoopta shows, takes us into the very heart of scientific medicine, revealing how even its most arcane concerns are shaped by cultural preoccupations and anxieties."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: The gonads before the endocrine era; title: The age of the internal secretions; title: Sexuality, aging, and the gonads: new physiology and old values; title: Ending gonadal hegemony: sex and the endocrine orchestra; title: The new hormones in the clinic; title: Epilogue: the gonads, the brain, and the neurohumoral body.