Jolly, but bitty and fairly random, this history of science takes us through lots of infectious people and their wounds, explores the benefits of urine, mentions medicinal use for earwax, and so much more that would appeal to any young reader needing a touch of the gross-out to get them learning history of science. There's no effort to make it chronological, or even coherent at times – and the box-outs and jokes would spoil any effort to do so, probably – but it is still fun, and taught me things, such as blister beetles being used to get bodily fluids into places they can be drained off. It's two from two from this series – a healthy four stars.

Great! Suitably disgusting and crammed full of facts. There were quite a lot of facts that I already knew but enough that I didn’t to keep this interesting and relevant. My only query was what age the book is pitched at because it is guilty sometimes of over explaining which made me feel very much like I’d accidentally encroached into a book for children, but then occasionally it used terminology or language it didn’t feel the need to explain which would definitely be over the heads of younger children. Also I did worry, in a factual book, about joking that ancients were having cornflakes for breakfast, even in a jokey way. If a book is factual, which this mostly did very well, then keep facts throughout as it’s too confusing.
Loved the delightfully yucky content though and even the cheese ridden jokes to lighten things up, very strategically placed and elicited a few groans.