Don’t try this at home: George’s Marvelous Medicine is quite toxic

Enlarge / The concoction featured in Road Dahl's 1981 children's book, George's Marvelous Medicine, could be harmful-even fatal-to grandmas, new BMJ study finds. (credit: YouTube/Storyvision Studios UK)

Famed children's author Roald Dahl greatly admired doctors who pioneered new medicines, and even dedicated his 1981 book, George's Marvelous Medicine-in which a young boy cooks up a potion using various ingredients around his family farm-to "doctors everywhere." Copies of the book contain a disclaimer to readers, warning them not to try to make George's concoction at home, as it could be dangerous. And now a recent paper published in the annual Christmas issue of the British Medical Journal (BMJ) has determined just how toxic the concoction could be if ingested.

The BMJ's Christmas issue is typically more light-hearted in nature, although the journal maintains that the papers published therein still "adhere to the same high standards of novelty, methodological rigour, reporting transparency, and readability as apply in the regular issue." Past years have included papers on such topics as why 27 is not a dangerous age for musicians, and the side effects of sword swallowing, among others. The most widely read was 1999's infamous Magnetic resonance imaging of male and female genitals during coitus and female sexual arousal." (We wrote about the paper last year to mark the 20th anniversary of its publication.)

(Spoilers for the 1981 children's book below.)

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