Brief History Of Pediatric Medicine In The United States

According to the Association of American Medical Colleges Databook, pediatric medicine weighs in as the third largest field of medical practice in the United States with close to 60,000 practicing doctors (2008 Physician Specialty 8). While pediatric medicine remains one of the most sought after fields of medicine today, the field itself exists as a relatively new one. Until the late 19th century, the subspecialty of pediatrics did not exist; instead, doctors treated pediatric patients as small adults, practicing “normal” medicine even to the detriment of pediatric patients. However, as the world around medicine began to change, pediatric medicine began to follow. Starting in the late 19th century, social change and medical advancement greatly shaped the

Dating back to Ancient Greece, physicians sought to understand and record the medical science related specifically to children, so much so, that the term “pediatrics” derives from the Ancient Greek words pias- child- and iatros- healer (Smith). Dating back to 1500 BC, pediatric medicine has been discussed, topics such as breastfeeding among the most widely mentioned. Some of the most notable names in Ancient History, including Hippocrates who is often referred to as the “Father of Medicine,” wrote about topics they believed pertain particularly to pediatric patients. The question of medicine designed specifically for children continued through the Middle Ages, leading most prominently to the Hopital des Enfants Malades- the Hospital for Sick Children- in Paris, France in 1802. The opening of this revolutionary hospital led to an outbreak of pediatric hospitals across Europe, and eventually, to the first hospital designed specifically for children in the United States in 1855 (Smith). However, pediatrics did not become widely recognized as a subspecialty until the work of Doctor Abraham Jacobi at the turn of the 19th