LEARNING

ACTIVITIES FOR

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE

KS2/3

ADAM KAy
These fun activities have been designed for children ages 8+ to complete in the classroom or at home. They will help children
understand the history of medicine (including all the gruesome, gory bits) from the ancient civilizations to the present day.

KS2 Science Curriculum Links: Ancient Egypt Ancient GreecE Ancient Rome
The achievements of the earliest civilization The achievements of non-European societies
Medieval Britain Britain since 1066 Florence Nightingale Mary Seacole The history of medicine

Science Curriculum Links: Key scientific discoverieS Influential scientists The immune system

A GROSS AND
GRUESOME HISTORY OF
THE HUMAN BODY

Illustrated by Henry Packer

1
ABOUT THE BOOK
The olden days were pretty fun if you liked wearing chainmail
this!
or chopping people’s heads off. But there was one TINY LITTLE Colour
problem back then . . . Doctors didn’t have the slightest clue about
how our bodies worked.

It’s time to find out why Ancient Egyptians thought the brain was just
a useless load of old stuffing that might as well be chucked in the bin,
why teachers forced their pupils to smoke cigarettes, why hairdressers
would cut off their customers’ legs, and why people used to get paid
for farting. (Unfortunately that’s no longer a thing – sorry.)

You’ll get answers to questions like:

Why did patients gargle with wee?
How did a doctor save people’s lives using a washing machine,
a can of beans and some old sausages?
What was the Great Stink? (No, it’s not what doctors call your bum.)

So, if you’re ready, pop a peg

on your nose (there was a lot
of stinky pus back then), pull
on your wellies (there was a lot
of poo around too), wash your
hands (because they certainly
didn’t) and explore this gross
and gruesome history of the
human body!

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 2

ACTIVITY ONE: MAJOR MEDICAL MOMENTS
Below are some important moments in the history of medicine.
Cut them out and put them in the order you think they happened. Antibiotics were
Which do you think happened first? Which do you think happened recently? discovered by Sir
Alexander Antibiotic.
I mean Sir Antibiotic
Fleming. Sorry, Sir
Alexander Fleming.
Doctors discovered That’s better.
that smoking was
dangerous. Before
then, doctors thought
smoking was good
for you – I don’t The microscope
like to call people was invented and
idiots, but . . . suddenly everything
looked massive.
The first X-ray was
performed. I’ve got no
idea what the X stands for.
Xylophone, maybe?

What medical discoveries

might be made in the future?
Tur n to page 174 of
The first kidney transplant Kay’s Marvellous Medicine
took place, soon followed for some predictions!
by liver transplants, heart
transplants and bum
transplants. (Maybe not
The first medical bum transplants, actually.)
school was opened.
ly
Before that, presumab
people just gues sed
how to be doctors? The coronavirus
pandemic swept
through the world.

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 3

 Marie Curie discovered Hippocrates realized that
radiation and then illnesses aren’t caused
everyone’s houses were nice Adam Kay
by magic. Apologies if
and warm. No, hang on, that’s was born, the
you thought that illnesses most handsome
radiators. Radiation is a
were caused by magic and genius in all of
treatment for cancer.
this is a massive spoiler. medicine.

Earth gets taken

over by the Octopus
Doctors discovered that People of Zaaarg.
The Romans used their
the heart pumps blood
brains and realized that Sorry about that.
around the body. But
then again, they also the brain is in charge
reckoned that poo flowed of thinking.
out of the heart . . .

FUN FAC T!
up people’s guts are in books from India
The first records we have of doctors sewing
use cotton thread? Bronze wire, maybe? Or The first anaesthetic was given,
about three thousand years ago. Did they
their jaws over the wound, then twist off their so patients could sleep during
did they get giant ants, make them clamp
s along the wound? Yep – you guessed it! their operations instead of going
bodies, leaving a line of decapitated ant head to
made from ants. Surgeons still use staples ‘AAA AAA AAA AGH! STOP!’
They’d basically invented a kind of staple
no ants get decapitated in the process).
stitch intestines today (although these days
Page 145

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 4

ACTIVITY two: NURSING IN THE 1800s
If you have to go into hospital for any reason these days, you know you’re going to
be looked after really well in totally clean surroundings – but two hundred years
ago hospitals could actually make you sicker. They were so filthy that rich people FLO R E N C E N I G H TI N GA L E :
would pay loads of money to be treated at home underneath their own duvet to avoid F I VE FAC T S A ND A LI E
catching any nasties in hospital. 1. She was known as the
Lady with the Lamb
You know the bit under your bed that never gets hoovered? The bit with mountains
because of an injured
of dirt and grime and snotty old tissues and the legs of dead insects? That’s what baby sheep she would
a hospital looked like on a good day. Well, until an amazing nurse called Florence always carry around
with her.
Nightingale decided to shake things up.

Florence was born in 1820 into a rich family – she described the holiday home her 2. She was named after the
parents owned as ‘a small house with only fifteen bedrooms’. She knew from a very city she was born in –
Florence in Italy.
young age that she wanted to help people. After she trained as a nurse, Flo went off to
work in a hospital in what is now called Turkey, where British soldiers were fighting in
3. Her sister was also named after
the Crimean War. the city she was born in, so got the
slightly more unusual name of
She was shocked that nearly half of the patients in the hospital there were dying,
Parthenope.
mostly because of infection, and she was sure it was because of terrible hygiene.
She arranged for a new hospital to be built that was much cleaner, and introduced 4. She was the first woman (other than
extremely strict rules about hand-washing. And it worked! Previously, half of all the the queen) to have her picture on a UK banknote.
patients were dying, and suddenly only two out of a hundred were. Pages 108 – 111
5. She hated having her photograph taken, and there
are only a couple of photographs of her in existence.
1. Why did rich people two hundred years ago pay lots of money (She definitely wouldn’t have used Instagram.)
to be treated at home rather than in a hospital?
6. She was a major maths whizz and developed a new
2. When was Florence Nightingale born?
type of pie chart. (That’s a way to show data using
3. Where did Florence go after she’d trained as a nurse? pictures, not a poster with loads of different pies on it,
by the way.)
4. Why was she shocked when she arrived at the hospital?
had gone to bed, holding a lamp and checking up on all her patients.
5. What changes did Florence make and what impact did they have? because she would walk around the hospital at night when the other staff
1. Cute as that sounds, she was actually known as the Lady with the Lamp

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 5

Task: Have a go at writing five facts and a lie about Mary Seacole.
Show them to a friend or family member. Can they guess which one is a lie?

Mary S eacole :
F I V E FAC TS A N D A LI E

1.

FUN FACT!
Another nurse who 2.
saved hundreds of lives in the
Crimean War was Mary Seacole. Mary
was born in Jamaica in 1805, before moving
to London and volunteering to help in the
war. She was an expert in treating infections like
cholera and yellow fever, and was famous for riding 3.
out into battlefields to help wounded soldiers, so
they could get treated as soon as possible. She
cared for so many soldiers that she became
known as Mother Seacole. (This is a bit unfair,
because when I was a doctor, my patients
never called me Daddy Adam.) 4.
Page 112

5.

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 6

ACTIVITY three: BEAUTY TREATMENTS IN ANCIENT ROME
The Romans thought that being ‘beautiful’ on the outside meant being healthy
on the inside. This is obviously total codswallop. First of all, whatever you look
like, you’re beautiful – it’s nothing to do with a random list of features that
some idiots have decided you should have. Secondly, the shape of your nose m in Ancient Rome?
1. What was make-up made fro
or the colour of your hair isn’t related to your health at all! I can prove it: I get ts?
Can you name five ingredien
so out of breath when I run for a bus that I have to sit down for half an hour – e?
ir fac
have put crocodile poo on the
and I’m the most handsome man in the world. 2. What kind of person might

in asses’ milk?
If people had any blemishes, they’d plaster on tons of make-up to hide them. 3. Why did the Romans bathe
Make-up was made from things like sheep’s sweat, horses’ urine, vinegar,
r?
they wanted to lighten their hai
eggs and onions – I’d much rather have zits than wear that. I’ve got no idea if 4. What did the Romans do if
this gross cure worked, but it must have made people smell like the inside of a
s and
rubbish truck. If you were really rich, you might have used a kind of make-up cient Rome put rotting leeche
5. Why might somebody in An
that was very expensive, very dangerous to get hold of and just as smelly. Yep,
red wine in their hair?
you’d dab your face with some delightful crocodile poo.

If you wanted to get rid of wrinkles, you might treat yourself to a bath full
of . . . nope, not bubbles; nope, not rose petals . . . asses’ milk. Don’t panic – it’s
nothing to do with bums – it means milk from a donkey. It didn’t work, and it
doesn’t sound particularly fun either. I’d much rather have a bath in a huge tub
of hot chocolate, with extra marshmallows.

A lot of people dyed in Ancient Rome. No, that’s not a spelling mistake - this
book doesn’t have any spelling mistaks – they dyed their hair. If you wanted
lighter hair, then you’d dip it in vinegar and maybe even sprinkle it with gold
dust. If you wanted your hair to look darker, then you‘d slather it in a mixture
of rotting leeches and red wine. Your locks would end up lovely and dark, but
you’d smell like a zombie’s underpants. Pages 158 – 159

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 7

 FUN FACT!
Task: Roman shampoo Caesar eventually came up
with a different plan: he
If someone’s hair fell out in Ancient Rome, they thought it was caused by wearing made a kind of headband
out of laurel leaves so no
one could see his lack of
heavy helmets all day, which is total drivel. Julius Caesar was really worried about locks – that’s why, if you see
a picture of him, it looks lik
losing his hair, so to make it grow back he invented a shampoo made out of horses’ e he’s just lost a wrestling
match with a hedge.
teeth, ground-up mice and the fat from under a bear’s skin. It didn’t work at all, so that
Page 161
treatment was abandoned very quickly (which the horses, mice and bears will be
very pleased to hear). Pages 160 – 161
ur
Draw yo e!
Design a shampoo bottle for your lovely Roman-style shampoo! er
design h
What will you call your shampoo? What is the purpose of your shampoo? (Perhaps
it’s to cure baldness, make hair shiny or treat dandruff?) Why not make up a slogan
to persuade your fellow Romans to buy your shampoo? Draw your shampoo bottle
design on the template on the right.

yle sh am po o!
In ve nt yo ur ow n Ro ma n- st
shampoo be made from?
What ingredients will your
repulsive as you like!)
(They can be as strange or

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.
KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 8
ACTIVITY four: ORGAN TRANSPLANTS
1. What is organ rejection?

Doctors have wanted to do transplants for thousands of years, but they’ve 2. What is the immune system?
only actually happened quite recently. So why did it take so long? Were
they all just really lazy? Or did they keep putting it off, like the way you’re 3. Who invented the drug that allows
doctors to carry out organ transplants?
always far too busy to tidy your bedroom?

4. What does this drug do?

The reason that it took surgeons soooo long to transplant an organ is that,
when they tried it, the patients just died. Even if they put it in exactly the 5. Why do people who have had organ
right place and connected it up perfectly to all the complicated veins and transplants need to stay away from people
arteries . . . the patient still ended up totally dead. This was because of who are ill?
something called organ rejection. Your body is so marvellous and
miraculous that as soon as some thing appears inside that it doesn’t
recognize, it goes straight on the attack. This is excellent news if you
have an illness because the viruses or bacteria or other evil invaders get
zapped and destroyed. But it’s not quite so handy if you’re trying to install a
Do you think doctors
new organ. can do head transplants?
YES NO
The big change happened when scientists invented a drug that stops the Turn to page 245 to find out!
immune system (the part of the body that fights infections) from getting
overexcited, which means the body doesn’t try to boot out its lovely new
replacement organ. This drug was invented by an incredible scientist
called Gertrude Elion – she won a Nobel Prize for it, and fair enough really.
FUN FACT!
Because their immune systems have been turned right down, it’s really
important that people with organ transplants stay away from people who Before too long it should be possible to make a brand-new heart
from scratch in a lab, for people whose hearts have stopped working
are ill because they’re not as good at fighting off germs. Pages 235 – 236 properly. This will be amazing, life-changing news for patients who are
on a waiting list for a heart transplant.

Page 82

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 9

Task: WHEN DID THE FIRST ORGAN TRANSPLANTS TAKE PLACE?
Use the missing words to fill in the gaps in the sentences below.
The pictures will give you clues. (You can read page 237 of Kay’s Marvellous Medicine for further help.)

In 1967, the first ................................... transplant took place.

In 1954, the first ................................... transplant took place.

In 1967, the first ................................... transplant took place. In 1981, the first ................................... transplant took place.

KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 10

ACTIVITY Five: THE TRUE OR POO QUIZ
FROM CHAPTER 2: FROM CHAPTER 3: FROM CHAPTER 4:
FROM CHAPTER 1: The gut
The Brain Circulation Infection

1. OUR BRAINS ARE BIGGER THAN 3. DRINKING BLOOD WAS A POPULAR 5. RABBITS CAN TELL IF 7. SHAKESPEARE WROTE
THOSE OF OUR ANCESTORS. TREATMENT IN ANCIENT ROME. YOU’VE GOT AN INFECTION. FART JOKES.

2. DOCTORS USED 4. A DOCTOR WON A NOBEL PRIZE FOR 6. SOME INFECTIONS 8. THE ANCIENT ROMANS GARGLED
ELECTRICITY TO TREAT PAIN OPPERATING ON HIS OWN HEART. WITH DIARRHOEA AS MOUTHWASH.
TWO THOUSAND YEARS AGO. MAKE YOU SMILE.

FROM CHAPTER 5: FROM CHAPTER 6: FROM CHAPTER 7: FROM CHAPTER 8:

SKin THe lungs surgery REPRODUCTION

9. MOLES ON YOUR SKIN CAN 11. ALEXANDER THE GREAT INVENTED AN 13. IT’S POSSIBLE TO DO OPERATIONS 15. YOU CAN ONLY HAVE
PREDICT THE FUTURe. OPERATION THAT IS STILL USED TODAY. ON BABIES BEFORE THEY’RE BORN. AN ULTRASOUND WHEN
YOU’RE IN THE BATH.

10. COLLECTING FINGERNAILS 12. SMOKING USED TO BE 14. THE WORLD RECORD FOR THE MOST
ALLOWED AT SCHOOL. SURGERY WAS A MAN WHO HAD 16. TWINS ARE GETTING
COULD MAKE YOU EXTREMELY RICH. MORE COMMON.
NINETY-SEVEN SEPARATE OPERATIONS.

FROM CHAPTER 11: FROM CHAPTER 12:

FROM CHAPTER 9: FROM CHAPTER 10:
EYES AND EARS
LIVER AND KIDNEYS BONES GENETICS
Poo, 22 True, 23 Poo, 24 Poo
17. THREE HUNDRED YEARS AGO, 19. KING CHARLES II WAS A CANNIBAL. 21. IN ANCIENT GREECE, THEY 23. JURASSIC PARK Poo, 18 True, 19 True, 20 True, 21
DOCTORS TRIED TO FIX THE BRAIN THOUGHT TEARS WERE CAUSED COULD ACTUALLY HAPPEN. True, 14 Poo, 15 Poo, 16 True, 17

USING EXTRACTS OF Wee. BY THE BRAIN LEAKINg. 9 Poo, 10 True, 11 True, 12 True, 13
4 True, 5 Poo, 6 True, 7 True, 8 Poo,
Answers: 1 Poo, 2 True, 3 True,

20. DOCTORS USED TO INJECT 24. IT WOULD TAKE YOU A WHOLE MONTH ANSWERS:

18.THERE USED TO BE A TAX ON WEE. JOINTS WITH GOLD. 22. BEETHOVEN COMPOSED MUSIC TO TYPE OUT YOUR GENETIC CODE.
WHEN HE WAS TOTALLY DEAF.
KAY’S MARVELLOUS MEDICINE ADAM KAy 11