A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEDIATRICS

A BRIEF HISTORY OF PEDIATRICS

In England in 1769, Dr. George Armstrong established a dispensary for the poor children of London in the impoverished Red Lion Square district. Dr. Armstrong, a role model for today's socially conscious pediatricians, authored one of the first pediatric textbooks, Essay on Diseases Most Fatal to Infants.

During colonial times, there were a few physicians who were interested in children. Benjamin Rush (a signer of the Declaration of Independence) presented lectures specific to diseases of children. The first formal medical student courses about children's health were at Yale College (1813-1852). The first children's hospital in the English-speaking world was the Hospital for Sick Children on Great Ormond St. (GOS), London (1852). Charles Dickens lived within a few blocks of the hospital and raised money for GOS with readings from A Christmas Carol. The first children's hospital in the U.S. was founded by Dr. Francis W. Lewis, who visited GOS and then established the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (1855). Dr. Abraham Jacobi was the founder of American pediatrics. He established the first children's clinic in the U.S. (1860), in New York City. The next two children's hospitals were Boston Children's Hospital (1869) and the Children's Hospital National Medical Center, Washington, D.C. (1870). Dr. Jacobi was a founding member of the Section of Pediatrics of the American Medical Association (AMA) and was the first president of the American Pediatric Society (1888). In 1897, Dr. L. Emmet Holt authored his classic American textbook The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood.

As the particular problems of children were identified, the federal government responded by accepting responsibility for the care of vulnerable children. In 1909, President Theodore Roosevelt convened the first of many White House conferences on the Care of Dependant Children. In 1912, the federal government established the U.S. Children's Bureau. In 1921, Congress passed the Sheppard-Towner Act, which authorized federal direct care for children. The AMA condemned the act as socialized medicine. When the Pediatric Section of the AMA House of Delegates endorsed the renewal of the Sheppard-Towner Act in 1929, the AMA House of Delegates rebuked the Pediatric Section and reversed the Section position, adopting a policy that prohibited any Section from taking any action without endorsement from the AMA House of Delegates. Key members of the Pediatric Section responded by recognizing the need for an independent professional organization and established the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) in 1930. The founders of the AAP declared that the core mission would be "to attain optimal physical, mental and social health and well being for all infants, children, adolescents and young adults." Through its many programs and projects, the AAP would seek to address " the needs of children, their families, and their communities… through advocacy, education, research, and service." The AAP remains the only national professional health organization whose goal is to serve and advocate for children and not just to serve the needs of its membership.

The Society for Pediatric Research was established for young basic science investigators in 1931. The Ambulatory Pediatric Association was founded in 1960 by a group of hospital outpatient directors interested in developing ambulatory care and health services research.