PEDIATRICS Vol. 55 No. 6 June 1975, pp. 835
This Article
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow P3Rs: Submit a response
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me when P3Rs are posted
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow E-mail this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My File Cabinet
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrow reprints & permissions
Citing Articles
Right arrow Citing Articles via CrossRef
Right arrow Citing Articles via Google Scholar
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by E., T. C.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow Articles by E., T. C., Jr.

THE FIRST ARTICLE PUBLISHED IN THE FIRST AMERICAN PEDIATRIC JOURNAL (1884)

T. C. E. Jr. M.D.

The first volume of the first American pediatric journal was published in 1884. The title and author of the first article in the January 1884 of this journal was "Convulsions in Children" by William T. Plant, M.D.

The first few paragraphs of Dr. Plant's article demonstrate his use of the active voice, his preference for positive assertions and his use of definite, specific, concrete language.

As likely as not your first patient will be a baby in a fit. The seizure has been sudden; the appearances are appalling; death is thought to be imminent and you are sent for because near at hand and likelier to be in than the older and usual family attendant. It may be a new experience for you and in dismay you ask yourself what you shall do. I will tell you. In the first place, go! "Stand not on the order of your going, but go at once!" Indeed the summons is so urgent that you can hardly do otherwise. And as you go you may get comfort from the thought that quite likely the fit will be over and the child asleep by the time you arrive and also that a convulsion does not very often end fatally.

We will suppose that the fit is not over and that you find the little one in such condition as I shall now describe. It is lying perhaps in a small bed-room. The ladies of the block or neighborhood, as many as can get in, are there, consternation in their faces and pity in their hearts, all anxious to help if they only knew what to do.