Kay’s Marvellous Medicine

Did you know that in the 15th century, a popular book entitled The Distaff Gospels advised pregnant women not to eat fruit, and to definitely not eat fish heads – because they would make the new baby’s mouth too pointy?

Did you also know that in the Middle Ages, people believed that our brains were powered by spirits moving around inside them? Or that in Australia, there exists a brain-eating amoeba (luckily it’s incredibly rare)?

If your children aren’t already whizzes at medical facts and the history of medicine (and who is?), then they might like to brush up with Adam Kay’s completely marvellous and very funny book. Covering the brain, circulation, bones, liver and kidneys, reproduction, skin, lungs, the gut, and much more, Kay explains some of the odd things that doctors in the past believed about the body and how illnesses worked, as well as teaching children about some of the truly brilliant people who made scientific discoveries in the area of medicine.