THE PEDIATRICIAN AND THE PUBLIC
IN COMMON with most medical schools on this Continent at the beginning of the present century, the subject of paediatrics was a very minor one and often nonexistent in the medical curriculum of Canadian medical schools. With the increasing influence of the European and American developments, pioneer work in Canada in the field of children's medicine and surgery was carried forward until lectures were given to final year medical students, and through a gradual process of demonstration and obvious need the courses have been enlarged until they now embrace subject matter which is generally used in most paediatric departments. Canadian medical schools have gradually developed independent departments of paediatrics and today only one department is still within Internal Medicine. Canadian paediatric departments and children's hospitals have kept pace with developments in the United States, Great Britain and Europe, by a constant interchange of graduate and postgraduate students. This commenced in centres in Germany and Europe and extended to Great Britain and the United States. In the early days of paediatrics as a specialty in Canada a small group of physicians engaged in teaching as well as practice formed the Canadian Society for the Study of Diseases of Children. They met annually for the presentation of scientific papers and for interchange of ideas.