A Short, Illustrated History of Medicine

If you're fed up with learning the names of kings and queens or dates of battles, then this is the history book for you. This book only contains some of the most brilliant bits about medicine in history. No rubbish diagrams or grainy photos - just really cool facts, intriguing people and of course the best eureka moments - all beautifully illustrated.

It includes: prehistoric trepanning, Hippocrates, Galen and Vesalius. It also looks at diseases such as scurvy and smallpox and how understanding vitamins and inoculation lead to millions of lives being saved. Later innovations include the discovery of penicillin, antiseptics and anaesthetics. Later, readers will discover heart surgery, psychiatry and scanning.

We've curated for kids some of the best examples of medical marvels. The chronological order will help them get to grips with how and why one discovery can lead to another. It also shows how humans have continually strived to improve their lives and even the world by building on successes from the past, inspiring them to take leaps into the unknown or to reveal their genius to the world.