George’s Marvellous Medicine

This charming children’s book, as old as this reviewer, is based on the pharmaceutical misadventures of George Kranky, an 8 year old boy, which are stimulated by the dislike of his “grousing, grouching, griping, grumbling” grandmother. In the absence of rats, snakes, or fireworks to teach her a lesson he embarks on creating a blockbuster drug from lotions and potions usually found in the bathroom, bedroom, kitchen, and shed.

His grandmother, blunt of affect and sharp of tongue, advocates traditional remedies such as caterpillars, cabbage, and crunchy beetles; but George prefers biomedicine and, being pressed for time, skips animal models and heads straight for …