Dead Ends!

Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels

By: Lindsey Fitzharris, Adrian Teal

Narrated by: Hunter Johns

Bloomsbury presents Dead Ends!: Flukes, Flops & Failures That Sparked Medical Marvels by Lindsey Fitzharris and Adrian Teal, read by Hunter Johns

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 “dead 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 body—from brain, to heart, to limbs—during which New York Times bestselling author Lindsey Fitzharris will guide you through centuries of medical mistakes, festooned with riveting facts and pitch-perfect humor. 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 listeners, and inspire them to embrace their failures, too!

©2025 Lindsey Fitzharris, Adrian Teal (P)2025 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

another great medical history book

4 stars - It was really good

Lindsey Fitzharris is back with another fantastic medical history book for kids. Dead Ends! is all about the many weird medical cures that were mostly useless and often harmful, but sometimes led to an occasional discovery that would lead to an actually helpful thing.This book covers things like bloodletting, beheadings, body snatching, CPR, brains, amputation, and quite a few other things.

This was a wonderful blend of medical history and humor that is just perfect for kids, or for adults too, especially those who are just dipping their toes into medical history. I have enjoyed all of Fitzharris’ books so of course I was going to get this book, even if it was a kids book. I learned quite a lot about some of the failed treatments in medical history. I found the CPR chapter to be the most interesting because it was something I had never researched before so finding out they would puff air up bums to try and bring people back was a bit amusing, and horrifying.

After finishing this audiobook, my physical copy came in the mail so I was able to look at the illustrations that Teal did. The artwork was wonderful and worked perfectly with the text. I loved how it was all done in black and white with red accents that really made the images pop. My favorite image is probably the Nosferatu putting blood on toast in the blood-letting section.

Overall, this was another great children's book on medical history from Fitzharris. I think kids will love this, especially kids who like macabre and weird things.