14 Milestones in the Speciality of Pediatrics

What is a pediatrician? If you ask nearly anyone in Summerville, SC that question you will likely get some variation of “baby doctor.” It pretty much sums it up, but a pediatrician doesn’t just look at a child as a smaller version of an adult. There are physical differences in children that make treating them a specialty. Our pediatricians at Charleston Palmetto Pediatrics understand this very important difference and strive to give our patients the very best care that we possibly can. Care that is suited for the age and special physical needs of our patients.

Since we are discussing the key differences in treating children, we have gathered a few interesting milestones from the early days of pediatrics to help you better understand the specialty.

1. The tests that led to the first smallpox vaccine were conducted by Edward Jenner in 1796.
2. Between the years of 1813 and 1852, Dr. Eli Ives lectured Yale medical students about diseases specific to childhood.
3. The first children’s hospital in America opens in 1854 in the city of Philadelphia.
4. Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, the first woman member of the Academy of Medicine, opens the children’s ward of the New York Infirmary in 1886.
5. The Home for Sick Children opens in Cincinnati, Ohio in 1883. It is the first children’s hospital in the Midwest.
6. Dr. Job Lewis Smith established the American Pediatric Society in 1888.
7. Harvard Medical School appoints its first professor of pediatrics, Dr. Thomas Morgan Rotch, in 1893.
8. In 1901, Dr. Dorothy Reed Mendenhall discovers that Hodgkin’s disease is a blood cell disorder (not a form of tuberculosis as was previously thought.) She goes on to work of various pediatric health issues and develops the standards of growth norms for child development.
9. The first U.S. seasonal polio epidemic occurs in 1916.
10. Using cod liver oil as a treatment for rickets is discovered by Sir Edward Mellanby, a London doctor.
11. In 1918, the innovative Dr. Emily Partridge Bacon becomes the first pediatric specialist in the city of Philadelphia.
12. The first woman to graduate from the McGill University in Montreal, Dr. Jessie Boyd Scriver, becomes the first president of the Canadian Pediatric Society in 1952.
13. In 1923, the diphtheria vaccine is introduced.
14. In 1926, the pertussis vaccine is introduced.

It is always eye-opening to look back at the history of the pediatrics! As a specialty, it continues to grow and advance year after year, and the pediatricians at Charleston Palmetto Pediatrics are happy to bring that innovation to our Summerville, SC patients.