In 1852, James Stewart (1799-1864), under the pen name "Phiopedos," originated a plan for the establishment of a children's hospital in New York City. When the institution was opened on March 1, 1854, under the name of the New York Nursery and Child's Hospital, it was the only hospital on this continent devoted to children. (There had been a hospital devoted exclusively to sick children in Boston as early as 1846, but financial difficulties forced it to close after a few years.)
"Philopedos" wrote1:
It must be evident to all who will reflect upon the large amount of sickness there is among the children of the poor in our city [New York], that hospital accommodations for them are among its most urgent wants. In the dwellings of the very poor there is almost always .. absence of everything necessary for the ordinary relief of the sick, and especially of the unremitting attention that is needed by them. The necessity of constant occupation to obtain the means of existence, precludes the possibility ...of devoting any time to the requirements of the sick; and it is from this want of attendance, next to want of pure air, that children suffer most. For those who have the necessary comforts for the sick, or who have the time that they may bestow upon their families, when they most require it, dispensary attendance is sufficient for their wants in sickness; but when it is known that many children are absolutely destitute of all these—indespensable as they are—the necessity of proving well-ventilated accomodations is evident; a place where all the wants of the sick [child] may be supplied, and especially when personal care must form an essential pant of the arrangement;—a need only to be supplied by the establishment of a well-organized hospital....
The Perioperative Services Response at a Major Children's Hospital During the Peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic in New York City