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Charles D. Kochakian has had a long and distinguished career in the field of endocrine physiology. His most important work concerned the anabolic actions of steroids. While still a graduate student, Kochakian showed that the anabolic effects of male hormones could be quantitated by measuring the changes they caused in urinary nitrogen balance. He subsequently showed that this anabolic effect was independent of the actions of other endocrine systems and pioneered the concept of a single hormone having different effects at different tissue sites. His career spanned five decades and included professorships at the University of Rochester, University of Oklahoma School of Medicine, and the University of Alabama at Birmingham. How It Was presents a history of Dr. Kochakian's career. Except for the first chapter, "My Pathway to Endocrinology," and a couple of reflective chapters at the end, little personal material is included, the focus rather being on Kochakian's scientific life. This, in general, makes an interesting story, especially for the specialist in endocrinology. Kochakian does sometimes refer without explanation to obscure procedures and equipment of endocrinology with which most general medical readers are probably unfamiliar. For example, in discussing some of his early experiments on the effects of androgens on basal metabolic rate, he states: "I acquired the rudiments of basal metabolism determination by the closed-circuit Benedict and also the opencircuit Tissot-Haldane methods in the laboratory work of the course" (p. 14). These methods are not further explained. For the most part, however, the book is intelligible to those with a background in medicine or physiology. This volume is useful for two reasons. First, because Dr. Kochakian's career spanned such a long period and his contributions were so central, this book is an important addition to the history of endocrinology. Also, as Dr. Kochakian himself explains in the preface, it is useful to get a discussion of how scientific discoveries were made, instead of just an impersonal account of the methods used and the results obtained in experiments that worked. Thus, this book should be of interest to a wide spectrum of readers.