Louis Berman

Born in 1893 and dying in 1946, Louis Berman was an American physician and author whose best-known book, The Glands Regulating Personality (1921), explored how the endocrine system might shape temperament, sex, and behavior.

His writing brought medical and scientific ideas to a wider audience in an ambitious, highly readable way. Today, the book is also a window into the history of science: it reflects the excitement around hormones in the early 1900s, along with theories that modern readers may see as dated or speculative.

Because the surviving sources found here are limited, some parts of his life and career are not easy to confirm with confidence. What is clear is that his name remains closely tied to a once-influential attempt to connect biology, personality, and everyday human nature.