Pediatrics—What is it?

Abstract

Summary As may be seen in Table X, if proper antenatal, natal and postnatal preventive measures are perfectly performed, the twenty-nine diseases in groups A and B can be reduced to a minimum, and the pediatrician or family physician can confine his efforts to the diagnosis and treatment of the fifty-five conditions amenable to specific therapy. In other words, instead of trying to teach students and ourselves to recognize three hundred and forty-six diseases, the prevention of twenty-nine, and the treatment of fifty-five should be stressed. These preventable and curable diseases cause 77 per cent of the deaths in children. The present reduction of general mortality largely has been due to efforts to prevent disease, and future progress probably will consist in improving the medical and hospital care of patients, but in pediatrics, as these figures only too clearly demonstrate, emphasis on both phases must be increased. If a physician is trained to recognize ill children, if he will carry out the immunization measures which are recommended by the White House Conference, and if he will feed children simply and sensibly, the practice of pediatrics will progress, the public will be benefited, and infant mortality decreased. If the doctors, health departments and public will cooperate, this goal can be reached. Much of the present situation is due to the apathy and indifference of the public, and not to any unwillingness of the medical profession. The accusation of Lady Mary Montagu is as unfounded today as it was in 1717: “I am patriot enough to take pains to bring this useful invention (smallpox inoculation) into fashion in England, and I should not fail to write to some of our doctors very particularly about it, if I knew any one of them that I thought had virtue enough to destroy such a considerable branch of their revenue, for the good of mankind. But that distemper (smallpox) is too beneficial to them, not to expose to all their resentment, the hardy wight that should undertake to put an end to it. Perhaps, if I live to return, I may, however, have courage to war with them. Upon this occasion, admire the heroism in the heart of—your friend, Mary Wortley Montagu.”12