PEDIATRICS Vol. 39 No. 5 May 1967, pp. 783-790
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WHO HAS THE LAST WORD?

A Look at Pediatric Pathology

Wolf W. Zuelzer M.D.1

1 The Child Research Center of Michigan, Detroit

IN ADDRESSING the Pediatric Pathology Club on the occasion of its first anniversary I am equally gratified by the size of the membership as by the quality of the scientific program. Less than a generation ago the pediatric pathologists of this country were easily numbered on the fingers of one hand. The phenomenal growth rate reflected in this meeting shows that the need for workers in this field, men and women trained in developmental pathology and responsive to the special problems of the pediatrician, has come to be recognized. Whether this "Club" is the beginning of the formal organization of a subspecialty or the nucleus of a working community of interests is a question that will be decided by practical considerations and had best be left to the younger men whose task it is to set the goals for the future. Scientifically, pediatric pathology has come of age.

Having spent nearly 30 years in the laboratories and on the wards of children's hospitals, I shall invoke the privilege of the old-timer and give you some rambling disconnected thoughts on the role of the pediatric pathologist in the scheme of things that have troubled me from time to time, drawing on past experience rather than attempting to make predictions. This is, of course, in the best classical tradition of pathology. Ours is the task of describing end results, our preferred tense is the past perfect, our mode is the indicative, or rather, the un-conditional, our punctuation mark par excellence is the period.