The 75th Anniversary of the American Academy of Pediatrics

Abstract

How far the American Academy of Pediatrics and pediatrics as a medical discipline have advanced during the last 75 years is eloquently evidenced in our 75th anniversary meeting, with thousands of attendees and hundreds of speakers, discussing an extraordinarily broad range of scientific, public health, socioeconomic, and governmental issues. My task is to explore with you how American pediatrics and the academy have evolved and especially some of the social, professional, and scientific forces and personalities that shaped the pediatrics of today. Knowing where we came from may give us insights into where we are likely to go in the next 75 years. It was not until the late 1800s that pediatrics began to emerge as a separate specialty in the United States, largely because of the influence and efforts of 4 physicians: Drs Abraham Jacobi, Job Lewis Smith, and L. Emmett Holt of New York, New York, and John Howland of Baltimore, Maryland. Jacobi, an immigrant from Germany, established a children’s clinic in the New York Medical College and was appointed as professor of infantile pathology and therapeutics in 1860. It was largely because of Jacobi that pediatrics became recognized as a specialty separate from obstetrics, and because of his effective leadership and eloquence, he has been appropriately called the father of American pediatrics. Guided by Jacobi, a unique aspect of pediatrics evolved. In the rest of medicine, specialization encouraged physicians to focus their attention on a particular body part or disease, but pediatrics did the opposite. Pediatric expertise was holistic, age specific, and emphasized growth and development, prevention, and, especially, nutrition. It is important to describe some sea changes that occurred in the United States during the first half of the 19th century, which altered American society and indirectly determined the structure of American pediatrics. With increasing industrialization, … Address correspondence to Howard A. Pearson, MD, FAAP, Department of Pediatrics, Yale University School of Medicine, PO Box 208064, New Haven, CT 06520-8064. E-mail: howard.pearson{at}yale.edu