In 1890, a German scientist called Robert Cook thought he had invented a cure for tuberculosis, a substance derived from the infectious bacterium itself, which he called tuberculin. Its substance did not actually cure anyone, but over time it was widely used as a medicine. diagnostic skin test. Koch's successful failure is just one of many striking cases presented in the book. Dead ends! Accidents, failures and setbacks it caused medical miraclesa new nonfiction illustrated children's book by science historian Lindsay Fitzharris and her husband, cartoonist Adrian Teale.
A renowned scholar with a love of the medically macabre, Fitzharris published a biography of surgical pioneer Joseph Lister. The art of cutting meatin 2017, a great, if sometimes terrible, read. She continued with the 2022 edition. Facemaker: A visionary surgeon's battle to restore mutilated WWI soldiersabout a World War I surgeon named Harold Gillies who restored faces of wounded soldiers.
And in 2020, she hosted a documentary for the Smithsonian Channel. Curious life and death…exploring famous deaths, from drug lord Pablo Escobar to magician Harry Houdini. Fitzharris conducted virtual autopsies, experimented with blood samples, interviewed witnesses and conducted live demonstrations in hopes of gaining fresh insights. For his part, Teal is a renowned cartoonist and illustrator, best known for his work on the British series. Spitting image. His work has also appeared in The Guardian and Sunday Telegraph, among other publications.
The couple decided to collaborate on children's books to combine their skills. Granted, “[The market for] Children's nonfiction is very complex,” Fitzharris told Ars. “Overall it’s not selling that well. It's very difficult to attract publishers to this. It's such a shame because I really feel like there's a hunger for it, especially when I see kids picking up these books and loving them. This is also simply necessary in the context of declining literacy levels. We need to engage people in these topics beyond a 30-second TikTok clip.”
Their first entry into the market took place in 2023. Plague fighters! Medicine's battles with the deadliest diseases in historystudying “the most heinous diseases that have infected people and plagued civilizations for centuries” and the medical discoveries that have occurred in the fight against these diseases. Dead ends is a sequel of sorts, this time focusing on historical diagnoses, experiments and treatments that were futile at best, often harmful, but ultimately led to unexpected medical breakthroughs.
