author
Louis Berman
1893–1946
A physician and early endocrinologist, he wrote popular books that linked hormones to personality, health, and human behavior. His work captured the bold hopes—and the controversies—surrounding hormone science in the early 20th century.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Working in New York City, Louis Berman was an American physician and experimental and clinical endocrinologist. He earned his M.D. from Columbia University in 1915 and later worked at Mount Sinai Hospital, building a reputation as a lively popularizer of new ideas about the endocrine system.
He is best known for books including The Glands Regulating Personality and The Personal Equation. In them, he argued that the glands of internal secretion played a major role in shaping temperament, character, and physical development—ideas that fascinated a wide general audience at a time when hormone research seemed full of promise.
Today, Berman is remembered less for settled medical conclusions than for the ambition of his vision. His writing offers a vivid window into an era when endocrinology was expanding quickly and many people hoped it might explain, and even improve, human nature itself.