THE Philadelphia Pediatric Society has presented to the library of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, an important work published in 1565 entitled: Five Books on the Feeding and Management of Children From Birth by Simon de Vallambert, thereby making an outstanding contribution to the historical and pediatric literary resources of Philadelphia, for the book is one of the earliest classics in the history of pediatrics, the first of its kind to be written in the French language, and one of the earliest in any modern language.
The medical care of children in the modern complete overall welfare sense is as old as archeological records go. One of the earliest records of mankind is a relatively short fragment of Egyptian papyrus written in the Sixteenth Century B.C., usually referred to as the Berlin Papyrus, For Mother and Child, which consists of a collection of incantations against two diseases of infants and various charms to facilitate childbirth, as well as prescriptions and incantations for the protection of infants. This fascinating text makes it possible for us to look into the Egyptian nursery. Just as a mother today knows lullabies with which she croons the crying baby to sleep, so the Egyptian mother was skillful in making amulets and using correct soothing words for the child who was sick, restless or threatened by evil.
Before the printing press was invented, literary efforts were transmitted in manuscript form. Through the centuries a number of such manuscripts have endured which pertain to matters of pediatric interest. Then came the printed book and, as soon as it did, pediatric printed works appeared.
La langue française: obstacle ou atout de l'«État-nation»?
