Editors: PAUL A. HARPER, M.D..
IN A recent issue of this journal Dr. J. H. Ebbs (Pediatrics, vol. 4, no. 8, p. 563, October 1951) gave an account of pediatric education in Canada. This article described the gradual evolution of pediatric activities and education in a well ordered, stable and prosperous community. While pediatric activities were no doubt modified in many details in Canada to conform with the special needs of that country, in their general features they are similar to those in Western Europe, Great Britain, and the United States. This is likewise true of pediatric education in Canada. Israel, on the other hand with its unique history and its peculiar problems, illustrates the manner in which pediatric activities, among which teaching must be included, are influenced by the ways in which a society came into being, its composition, and the pattern which it possesses.
Pediatric Education During the Period of the Mandate
Shortly after the capture of Jerusalem in 1917, Hadassah sent a medical mission from the United States to Palestine. This mission opened a number of infant welfare stations in the country and began with an organized campaign against trachoma which was then, as now again, widely prevalent. At the beginning of the British Mandate the Jewish population numbered about 80,000; at the end of the Mandate in 1948 it had grown to 650,000.