Kay’s Marvellous Medicine: A Gross and Gruesome History of the Human Body by Adam Kay

Kay’s Marvellous Medicine: A Gross and Gruesome History of the Human Body by Adam Kay is one of the most informative and hilarious books on medicine I’ve ever read. Each chapter has multiple subsections in which Kay writes about how different people tried to cure diseases with crazy medicines. There are multiple different eras which Kay writes about, including Ancient Greece, the Middle Ages (that Kay has deemed Sparkle Time because “the Middle Ages” sounded too boring), and more.

One of the ridiculous cures doctors once suggested was dropping pigeon blood into people’s eyes to cure blindness, this cure had the opposite effect. Instead of curing them of blindness it would blind them even more, or even kill them. Another doctor also suggested rubbing human fat onto your joints to ease arthritis, this had absolutely no use. However, Kay also writes about the good medicines. Every little bit about this book is written in a wonderfully hysterical manner.

I really loved this book because all of it is so funny, so gross, but so informative, all at the same time. Kay’s great aunt Prunella also left notes in the margins dissaproving of Kay and his book to add even more laughs than Kay already manages on his own. Overall, Kay has written my favorite book on medicine and cures I have, and I really admire how he can combine facts and laughs together so seamlessly to make a wonderful novel.