PERHAPS establishment of hospitals for children and acceleration in the advancement of pediatrics were merely coincidentalthe relationship continues to appear essential. The earliest institutions for children were more in the nature of refuges and foundling asylums rather than centers for treatment, study, and education such as the hospitals of modern times have become.
The value and significance of a fully developed hospital center for children may be more deeply felt by those lacking access to one or by those who have shared in creation of a center even though the pattern was already at hand.
The origins of the idea of a hospital for children are obscure.