Adrenaline

Adrenaline is best known as the hormone that drives the body's sudden emergency response, the surge that readies us to face a threat or flee from it. Its reputation reaches well beyond physiology. Forensic investigators have considered it as a poison that could, in theory, escape detection, and persistent stories claim it can bring the dead back to life.

Brian B. Hoffman follows the substance through its scientific importance and its hold on popular imagination, explaining what researchers have learned about adrenaline and why the public remains so fascinated by it.