Recent work in anthropology has speculated on how developments in molecular biology and medicine might bring about new bodies, selves, and forms of sociality. This thesis explores how herbal and pharmaceutical antidepressants differently affect experiences of one's neurochemistry. It does so in two ways. First, it outlines the historical 'social life' of pharmaceutical antidepressants, including their co-production with depression, and the neurochemical body in a particular style of reasoning in biological psychiatry. Second, it presents and analyzes claims made for the efficacy of antidepressants made in vernacular North American books, advertisements, and pamphlets. Although the claims for both herbal and pharmaceutical antidepressants allude to the same realms of value---those of science, nature/history, and personal experience---their different social lives enable different access to the neurochemical body.

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