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Dead Ends!

Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels
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( 81 ratings, 21 reviews)
Brief Description
School Library Journal Best Book of the Year | Chicago Public Library Best Kids' Book of the Year | Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and... Read More
Format: Hardback
$5400

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From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and dead ends.

From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and dead ends.

Book Hero Magic formatted this description to make it easier to read. While it's new and still learning, it may not be perfect - your feedback is welcome! Description

School Library Journal Best Book of the Year | Chicago Public Library Best Kids' Book of the Year | Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year

From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about medicine's most fascinating failures and dead ends.

Beheadings! Bloodletting! Bodysnatching! Journey down a snaking road bristling with medicine’s most astonishing β€œdead ends.” Marvel at the diagnoses, experiments, and treatments that were frequently useless, and often harmful, but that sometimes led doctors to discoveries that changed the world for the better.

Enjoy a whirlwind tour of the human bodyβ€”from brain, to heart, to limbsβ€”during which New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris and caricaturist Adrian Teal will guide you through centuries of medical mistakes, festooned with riveting facts, pitch-perfect humour, and vivid illustrations. Celebrate the flukes, flops, and failures that have given science a better understanding of our bodies and ways to treat them.

This fascinating book of foul-ups is sure to delight young readers, and inspire them to embrace their failures, too!

Book Details

INFORMATION

ISBN: 9781547615025

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

Format: Hardback

Date Published: 15 January 2026

Country: United States

Imprint: Bloomsbury YA

Contributors:

  • Illustrated by Adrian Teal

Audience: Children

DIMENSIONS

Spine width: 22.0mm

Width: 156.0mm

Height: 232.0mm

Weight: 520g

Pages: 160

About the Author

Lindsey Fitzharris is a New York Times bestselling author of The Butchering Art and The Facemaker, and the co-author of Plague-Busters! She holds a Ph.D. in the history of science and medicine from Oxford University, and regularly writes for major publications. She is also the writer and host of the Smithsonian TV series The Curious Life and Death of….
drlindseyfitzharris.com

Adrian Teal is a caricaturist, cartoonist, fine artist, and illustrator. He is the co-author and illustrator of Plague-Busters! His work has appeared in numerous TV shows, including Spitting Image and Big Heads. He has produced art for publications such as the Sunday Telegraph, the Times, the Guardian, Time Out, and the Daily Mail.
adrianteal.com

Also by Adrian Teal

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  • Plague-Busters!
    From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about diseases that have shaped the course of human history. * Chock-full of awesomely appalling medical history. β€”Shelf Awareness, starred review * Engaging, informative, but also gross. β€”School Library Journal, starred review School Library Journal Best Book of 2023 Cybils 2023 Nonfiction Middle Grade Finalist 2024...
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Also by Lindsey Fitzharris

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  • The Facemaker
    Immerse yourself in a compelling narrative with The Facemaker, where award-winning historian Lindsey Fitzharris unveils the astonishing achievements of Harold Gillies, a pioneering plastic surgeon whose work during the First World War redefined the field of reconstructive surgery. The story follows Gillies, a Cambridge-educated New Zealander, as he confronts the harrowing aftermath of the war's industrial-scale slaughter, where new weaponry...
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  • The Butchering Art
    The spellbinding story of a visionary British surgeon who changed medicine forever. In The Butchering Art, historian Lindsey Fitzharris recreates a critical turning point in the history of medicine, when Joseph Lister transformed surgery from a brutal, harrowing practice to the safe, vaunted profession we know today. Victorian operating theatres were known as 'gateways of death', Fitzharris reminds us, since...
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  • Plague-Busters!
    From New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris, a riveting middle grade nonfiction book about diseases that have shaped the course of human history. * Chock-full of awesomely appalling medical history. β€”Shelf Awareness, starred review * Engaging, informative, but also gross. β€”School Library Journal, starred review School Library Journal Best Book of 2023 Cybils 2023 Nonfiction Middle Grade Finalist 2024...
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  • Sleuth-Hound
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    From the bestselling author of The Butchering Art and The Facemaker comes the astonishing true story of Joseph Bell, the Scottish surgeon whose extraordinary talent for detection inspired Sherlock Holmes. Edinburgh, 1878. A medical student named Arthur Conan Doyle squeezes into the Royal Infirmary's packed operating theatre, hoping to catch a glimpse of the celebrated professor whose uncanny powers of...
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