GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT OF CHILD HEALTH SERVICES

THIS report covers only that segment of child health care provided through organized community agencies, official or voluntary. According to the American Academy of Pediatrics' Study, about 22 percent of all the health care children received during an average day in 1946 for the nation as a whole was under such administrative arrangements. Most of the 22 percent represented hospital care, which is discussed in Chapter II. Only about 1.5 percent of total care on an average day represented care in child health clinics sponsored by public health agencies. Origin of Public Services for Children At the turn of the 20th century, bacteriology and immunology began to place in the hands of health officials the weapons to control communicable diseases and to prevent many deaths among children. These weapons made possible the development of planned, community-wide programs to prevent infant mortality and to improve child health. The earliest efforts were made in cities, partly because high mortality and morbidity rates were obvious in urban areas and partly because health departments were first organized in major cities. Moreover, these localities usually had adequate numbers of philanthropic citizens interested in helping to create and support private as well as public health agencies. New York was one of the first cities in the United States to demonstrate how existing knowledge could be organized for widespread use to save the lives of babies in crowded sections. In 1893, Jacobi, one of the first American pediatricians, encouraged a New York philanthropist to establish milk stations for distributing pasteurized milk for New York infants to help prevent infantile diarrhea. By 1902, there were 14 such stations in New York.