Pediatrics: New Medical Specialty

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, Aëtius 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