Serotonin! Here, indeed is a substance to conjure with. At least its myriad physiologic and pathologic associations have conjured up thousands of papers, while inspiring clinicians and researchers and even a bit of poesy:
This man was addicted to moanin',
Confusion, edema and groanin',
Intestinal rushes,
Great tricolored blushes,
And died from too much serotonin.
—W. B. Bean and D. Funk
Archives of Internal Medicine103:189 (Feb) 1959
"Serotonin," the word as a book title might discourage the general reader and attract the connoisseur. Both would be wrong. The biochemically-oriented, expecting (justifiably) a veritable Handbuch, would do better to consult Page's comprehensive discussions (1945 and 1958) in Physiological Reviews. Others will find a pleasant evening's overview of this metabolic jack-ofmany-trades, which has "replaced epinephrine as a sure road to tenure for the pharmacologist", by the man who (with Rapport and Green) first isolated serotonin twenty years ago. A formidable