Why Vaccines?
Childhood Illnesses in the Pre-Vaccine Era
Lewis Starr was born in Philadelphia and earned his M.D. from the Medical School of the University of Pennsylvania in 1871. He was a visiting physician at the hospital of the University Pennsylvania, the Maternity Hospital, and Northern Home for Destitute Children and Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. In 1880 he began lecturing on children's diseases at Penn, and became their first professor of pediatrics in 1884. According to the the University of Pennsylvania's website, Dr. Starr "gave up his chair at the age of 41, supposedly because the wards of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania did not provide facilities for children, thus making it very difficult for him to include practical demonstrations in his teaching." He continued to write and lecture while maintaining a private practice, and produced a number of books on pediatrics.
According to the British Medical Journal of 1898, Charles West "helped to make the reign of Queen Victoria a memorable period in the history of medical progress." Dr. West studied medicine in Paris and Bonn, and returned to London to practice. He established the Hospital for Sick Children in 1852—now known as the Great Ormand Street Hospital—and Charles Dickens, a personal friend of Dr. West, wrote an article in the magazine Household Words and gave a public reading to publicize it and help raise funds. The Great Ormand Street Hospital's website says that "Dr West had three principal ambitions for the Hospital, which remain the basis of its work today: the provision of healthcare to the children of the poor, the encouragement of clinical research in paediatrics, and the training of paediatric nurses." Dr. West's lectures on the diseases of children were published in seven editions.
Francke Huntington Bosworth was born in Ohio and served in the Civil War under General Rosencranz. When his enlistment was over he attended Yale College, reenlisted after graduation, and only after his second enlistment began to study medicine at Bellevue Medical College. He was valedictorian of his graduating class in 1869, and became a pioneer in the area of diseases of the nose and throat. Dr. Bosworth wrote extensively on laryngology. His two-volume treatise on the topic was published in 1890 and 1892, and upon writing it Dr. Bosworth was so impressed by the importance of the nasal region that he named it Diseases of the Nose and Throat, reversing the time-honored tradition of using "Throat and Nose." D. Bryson Delavan, author of Bosworth's obituary, wrote that the treatise "was a monumental contribution to laryngology. Together with the pioneer work of Dr. J. Solis-Cohen, of Philadelphia, published in 1878, and that of Sir Morell Mackenzie which appeared in 1882, it marked an epoch in the advance of the specialty.
Luther Emmett Holt was from Rochester, NY. He attended the University of Rochester, and received his M.D. from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, where he was professor of diseases of children from 1901-1922. He devoted himself to pediatrics before the specialty was formally recognized, and after practicing from several hospitals in New York City was appointed Attending Physician at the Babies Hospital. During his tenure the hospital became the most celebrated children's hospital in the country. Holt himself was the most prominent pediatrician of his time, and his two textbooks, Care and Feeding of Children (1894) and The Diseases of Infancy and Childhood (1896) were worldwide bestsellers. The first went through 75 editions, and the second, with 20 editions, remained the definitive text on pediatrics until 1940.
Eduard Heinrich Henoch received his medical degree from the University of Berlin in 1843. He became assistant the next year at the Berlin University Poliklinik while also working as an "Armenarzt," or doctor for the underprivileged. Dr. Henoch completed postgraduate studies in internal medicine in 1860, and in 1872 became director of the clinic and policlinic for children's diseases at the Berlin Charité, the first children's hospital in Germany. He wrote extensively on childhood illnesses, but is perhaps best known for the eponymous diseases Henoch's purpura and Henoch-Schönlein purpura (also Schönlein-Henoch purpura), named after Dr. Henoch and his teacher. Though two British physicians had described the disease earlier in the century, the name Heberden-Willan disease had fallen into disuse. Dr. Schönlein first noted the connection between of purpura and arthritis in children, and Dr. Henoch subsequently described the connection between purpura and abdominal pain.
