Pediatrics is a relatively new medical specialty. [1]Hippocrates, Aristotle, Celsus, Soranus, and Galen, understood the differences in growing and maturing organisms that necessitated different treatment “Ex toto non sic pueri ut viri curari debent. “[1] A 2nd century AD manuscript by the Greek physician and gynecologist Soranus of Ephesus dealt with neonatal pediatrics. [2] Byzantine physicians;Oribasius, Aetius of Amida, Alexander Trallianus, and Paulus Aegineta stand out for their contributions to child care.
[1] The Byzintines also built brephotrophia, “baby shelters,”or “children’s hospitals. “[1]Islamic writers served as a bridge for Greco-Roman and Byzantine medicine and added ideas of their own especially Haly Abbas, Serapion, Rhazes, Avicenna, and Averroes, The Persian scholar and doctor al-Razi (865–925) published a short treatise on diseases among children. [3] The first printed book on pediatrics was in Italian (1472) – Bagallarder’s Little Book on Disease in Children. [4]Paulus Bagellardus a Flumine (d. 1492) De Infantium Aegritudinibus et Remediis 1472, Bartolomaeus Metlinger (d.1491).
Ein Regiment der Jungerkinder 1473, Cornelius Roelans (1450-1525) no title Buchlein, or Latin compendium, 1483, and Heinrich von Louffenburg (1391-1460) Versehung des Leibs written 1429 published 1491. together form the Pediatric Incunabula, four great medical treatises on children’s physiology and pathology. [1]Pediatrics as a specialized field of medicine developed in the mid-19th century; Abraham Jacobi (1830–1919) is known as the father of pediatrics because of his many contributions to the field. [5] He was born in Germany, where he received his medical training, but later practiced in New York City.