The term "Pediatrics" is derived from two Greek words, paidos that means "Child" and Iatreia which means "Curator", according to its definition "The Art of Healing Children".
Since ancient times, knowledge of childhood diseases is described in different documents as clinical pictures by Hippocrates of Cos (460 BC - 370 BC) and in the Ebers Papyrus (written in ancient Egypt, about 1500) develop chapters on the birth, "Lactation Diseases", "Discomfort in the Expulsion of Urine" and "Intestinal Parasitism", also in medical texts of ancient civilizations such as China, Jewish and India.
Formerly, this branch of Medicine did NOT exist, since in those years the health care of children was the sole responsibility of the adult, later in the Renaissance Period, the diseases that children suffered acquired such importance that the study of the same as a specialty of Medicine.
The main goal of pediatrics as a branch of health is the decrease in the death rate in children, as well as the control of those diseases that are infectious, to provide infants with a long and disease-free life.
Countries such as France and Germany were the precursors in the evolution of the services and knowledge that are the basis of Pediatrics today, in Europe and America they did not delay in spreading hospitals dedicated solely and exclusively to treating diseases in children, later worldwide These types of institutions were created.
The first Spanish treatise on children's medicine by Pedro Jacobo Díaz de Toledo "Opusculum de morbis puerorum" came to light in 1538, continuing with Thomas Phaer (1510-1560) in 1553 (London) and Nils Rosén von Rosenstein (1706-1773) ( Uppsala, Sweden) in 1765.
Although the United Kingdom has the merit of having founded a Dispensary for the Assistance of Children in 1776, it is not until the 19th century (with the appearance of the Hospitals to attend them) that the beginning of the Scientific Pediatrics and its consecration was marked as a independent knowledge
However, since the sixteenth century, Jerónimo Soriano (Around 1560) together with the work Methodo and order to cure the diseases of Children founded in the Spanish City, Teruel, an exclusively children's hospital.
It will not be until 1802 that in Paris (France), the first hospital of great importance is created giving rise to French Pediatrics, continuing in Berlin (1830), St. Petersburg (1834), Madrid and Barcelona (1879).
The First Pediatric Hospital in the western world is generally accepted to be the Des Enfants Malades, the hospital of Hôpital for sick children in English, which opened in 1802 in Paris, being this famous for the care of patients until the age of 15 .
Then it extends to other European countries such as Germany, Russia, Austria, Poland and England in the 19th century.
The first hospital for children in the United States was opened in Philadelphia in 1855 and Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919) is considered the father of Pediatrics in America.
The seventeenth century was the birth of Modern Pediatrics, due to the significant increase in articles on these issues, including authors of the period such as: Thomas Willis (1621-1675), Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689), François Mauriceau (1637-1709) and Franciscus Sylvius (1614-1672) with his treatises on childhood diseases.
It is argued that current scientific progress comes from the United States on a large scale, and it is interesting that the first pediatricians who practiced in North America came from Europe: Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919); Thomas Hunt Morgan (1866-1945) and Guido Von Pirquet (1880-1966), professors all renowned in the main universities of that time.
In this way the German Pediatrics, which had happened in hegemony to the eminent French Clinic, passed the torch of progress to the American and Anglo-Saxon in general.
By 1874 the stage of legislation in favor of the mother and the child began: Austria (1824), England (1872), France (1874) and Germany (1880).
With the arrival of the 20th century, the different periods of the specialty are ostensibly consolidated.
First Stage: Clinical or Nosological Pediatrics, descriptive in nature around 1900-1925 approximately.
Second Stage: Etiological, covering from the second quarter of the century until 1940.
With the impact of the Second World War, laboratory studies and functional investigations (physiological stage), of pathological anatomy are incorporated, providing the exact knowledge of causal factors in metabolic, endocrine, nutrition and immunology diseases.
Third Stage: It is the so-called Therapeutic (1940-1965), where powerful prophylactic discoveries such as the polio vaccine and other viruses, chemotherapy treatments and antibiotics initiated with sulfonamides, penicillins and streptomycin occur, which allows a dramatic decrease in Infant Mortality .
Since 1965 it is considered that we are in the Fourth Stage or Scientific Pediatrics. Thus individualizing in the course of the last two centuries and its development as a Medical Science by assessing considerably its methods of study, the behavior increasingly closer to social prevention whose objective is to achieve a happy childhood with optimal health.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE PEDIATRY IN ARGENTINA
The health care of children and adolescents during the years after the arrival of the Spanish conquerors in Argentina was extremely precarious.
There were no hospitals to provide adequate services and only primitive, eminently empirical, homemade, almost irrational therapeutic practices were carried out with a predominance of superstitions and without real curative support.
The Royal Court of the Protomedicate based in Lima that had interference to our territory, produced since the mid-seventeenth century an incipient change that helped modify some of these misguided experiences but despite this, some measures remained in force for many years.
At that time, Buenos Aires had thirty-six healers registered, including: few doctors with title, nurses, bleeding, surgeons, hernists (cured hernias) and spreaders (treated fractures and dislocations).
According to Donato Depalma (1927-2012) diphtheria that was known as "Shearing", the exanthematic typhus as "Tabardillo" and smallpox were provocative diseases of high infant mortality.
As a result of destitution and epidemic outbreaks, the "Brotherhood of Holy Charity" created in 1699, the "House for the Pickup of Orphan Girls", closed three years later and reopened in 1755.
The poor care of children's health and the large number of abandoned children determines that the Spanish Courts will approve, at the request of the Attorney General Don Marcos José de Riglos, the Creation of a “House of Exposites”.
On August 7, 1779, the Viceroy Juan José de Vértiz y Salcedo (1719-1799) inaugurated the institution (current Pediatric Hospital "Dr. Pedro de Elizalde").
In a report issued by Administrator Diaz de Vivar, in 1795 it is recorded that in the 16 years of operation of the establishment "1199 children had entered, only 28 of them returned with their parents and 723 died" "Terrifying statistics". "Don't even think about pediatric care, unknown as an entity with its own profiles!"
Some journalistic publications of the time, of dissemination of advice on child health care, among them: the “Mercantile Telegraph” in its edition of November 22, 1801, transcribes a Royal Order “To apply the stick oil in the cut of the umbilical cord to preserve the evil of the seven days ”(neonatal tetanus).
The behaviors exerted for the treatment of the umbilical cord have been varied as dangerously aggressive: Putting cloths with urine, spider webs and plasters of different substances.
All of them favoring the arrival of the Clostridium Tetani described by the therapist Arthur Nicolaier (1862-1942) in 1884.
It was also advised to use purgatives, peony syrups (ornamental flower), baths in decoction of yerba mate and rubbing with castor oil, all risky and ineffective practices.
The "Weekly of Agriculture" transcribed on April 4, 1804, an opinion of the Medical Board of Paris referred to "Toys harmful to children's health" linked to the danger of the dyes that contained the paintings with which they were painted the game objects, which contained highly toxic substances such as: copper, lead and sulphurous arsenic.
The same weekly published information on the most frequent diseases during the first six months of life and the importance of exclusive feeding with mother's milk.
On May 1, 1805, he reported on the arrival of the first stock of smallpox vaccine.
The Argentine Doctor, Juan de Dios Madera (1782-1829) was responsible for being the first Physician appointed to assist children admitted to the House of Exposites.
"The Censor" of June 17, 1817, reflected the opinion of the prestigious doctor regarding the inadequate sanitary conditions of the institution and the unfortunate state of health of children.
The Protomedicato of the Río de La Plata, based in Buenos Aires, operated from 1779 until the beginning of 1820 and was a technical body responsible for supervising the practice of health professions: doctors, surgeons and apothecaries, exercising a teaching function and attending training of professionals.
In 1801 the first School of Medicine was created in Buenos Aires that worked in the current streets Peru and Alsina being first protomedical, Michael O'Gorman (1749-1820), of Irish origin.
He was also in this organization, Eusebio Fabre (1729-1820) replaced in 1802 by the Argentine Cosme Mariano Argerich (1756-1820).
Medical studies were not attractive at that time and only three students enrolled in 1812.
In 1821, the Protomedicate was replaced by the Department of Medicine of the University of Buenos Aires, recently founded by Bernardino Rivadavia (1780-1845).
The First Doctors graduated in 1827 and was awarded the Faculty Level in 1852, opening in 1854 the Hospital de Clínicas (in its current location as an entity for the university training of doctors).
At the end of the 18th century, Francisco López de Villalobos (1473-1549) advised the application of suction cups in cases of infectious respiratory diseases of children and other authors such as Francisco Bermejo and Roldán (1637-1710) described the clinical forms of measles and indicated the use of indentations.
BEGINNING OF PEDIATRIC CARE IN ARGENTINA
Around 140 years ago, the Argentine Pediatrics began to achieve a structural organization of the knowledge of the health of children and adolescents that over time became solid, orderly and independent of adult medicine.
This allowed us to have new resources for the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of childhood and juvenile diseases.
The scientific and technological advances, the renewal of the political, philosophical ideas and the social and cultural changes of the last centuries made possible the appearance of important foreign pediatric schools such as the French, the German and the American.
In these countries accredited teaching-assistance centers where the pioneers of children's medicine in our country enriched their training.
This fruitful exchange influenced the flowering of the incipient pediatric school, especially in the cities of Buenos Aires, Córdoba, Rosario and La Plata.
These teachers not only acquired knowledge and theoretical methods, but also how to make them pragmatic for their disciples and the students they trained, generating an enormous benefit in the health of children and young people.
CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL “DR. RICARDO GUTIERREZ ”IN BUENOS AIRES
On January 7, 1867, María Josefa del Pino (1808-1872) presented to the Charitable Society the project to create a Children's Hospital in the City of Buenos Aires.
Difficulties of different origin caused the institution to begin operating only on April 30, 1875, in a house owned by the descendants of the Viceroy Santiago de Liniers (1753-1810), located on Victoria Street 1779, currently Hipólito Irigoyen 3420.
With few 20 beds, this situation forced the transfer (two years later) to a larger building on 1462 Arenales Street.
Its first Interim Director was Dr. Rafael Herrera Vegas (1868-1928) until the return of Dr. Ricardo Gutiérrez (1836-1896), who was in Europe, specializing in Pediatrics.
In August 1875, upon returning from France, he assumed the Nosocomio Directorate, a position he held for 20 years.
The Argentine Surgeon Ignacio Pirovano (1844-1895) and Adalberto Ramaugé (1878-1933) were the first doctors being the first practitioner, José María Ramos Mejía (1849-1914).
The growing demand for assistance determined that after long procedures the New Hospital will be inaugurated on December 30, 1896, at its current location on 1330 Gallo Street.
Finally, in 1936, Deputy Juan Antonio Solari (1899-1980) presented a project, on the occasion of the Centenary of the Birth of Dr. Ricardo Gutiérrez, to impose his name on the Prestigious Institution, in recognition of his tireless and efficient work.
The Children's Hospital “Dr. Ricardo Gutiérrez ”represented a key milestone in the development and consolidation of Children's Medicine in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
