"From birth to death, a lyrical exploration of the role of transformation in human life. To be alive is to be in perpetual metamorphosis: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, physician and writer Gavin Francis considers the inevitable changes all of our bodies undergo-such as birth, puberty, and death, but also laughter, sleeping, and healing-and those that only some of our bodies will: like getting a tattoo, experiencing psychosis, suffering anorexia, being pregnant, or undergoing a gender transition. In Francis's hands, each event becomes an opportunity to explore the meaning of identity and the natures-biological, psychological, and philosophical-of our selves. True to its own subject, Shapeshifters combines Francis's lyrical imagination and deep knowledge of medicine and the humanities for a life-altering read."--Publisher.

"Wellcome collection." "June 2018"--Title page verso.

Transformation -- Werewolves : agitation at the full moon -- Conception : the first and second reason for existing -- Sleep : the chamber of dreams -- Bodybuilding : unhelmed by fury -- Scalp : of horns, terror and glory -- Birth : reshaping the heart -- Rejuvenation : an alchemy of youth and beauty -- Tattooing : the art of transformation -- Anorexia : the enchantment of control -- Hallucination : a sphere of devils -- Puberty : suddenly accelerated youth -- Pregnancy : the most meticulous work -- Gigantism : two giants of Turin -- Gender : the two lives of Tiresias -- Jetlag : the brain that holds the sky -- Bonesetting : an algebra of healing -- Menopause : third face of the goddess -- Castration : hope, love and sacrifice -- Laughter : some eminency in ourselves -- Prosthetics : humanity 2.0 -- Memory : palaces of forgetting -- Death : the celebration of life -- Transformations.