bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025_split huggingface dataset:
Short Stature and Diagnostic Studies
Authors: Schmitt Barton D. 
Published: December 2021

Horner, Thorsson, and Hintz1 have recently reviewed their experience with constitutional short stature (CSS) as defined by short stature, a delayed bone age, no family history of short stature, and no pathologic etiology. Their coverage of this specific condition is excellent, but it raises several questions about short stature in general.
First, whatever happened to the children with familial short stature (FSS)? FSS can be defined as a child with short stature, a normal bone age, and a family history positive for short stature.
THOMAS PERCIVAL, MD WRITES TO HIS CHILDREN ABOUT CRUELTY TO INSECTS
Authors: C. T. E. 
Published: December 2021

Thomas Percival (1740-1804) is best known for his Medical Ethics (1794). The British and American medical professions have adopted much of "Percival" in their ethical codes.1
He was also the author of a delightful book of tales, fables, and reflections written for the instruction of his children.
This is how Percival taught his children about cruelty to insects.2
Mr. Melmoth, in one of his elegant letters, informs his friend, that the snails have had more than their share of his peaches and nectarines this season; but that he deems it a sort of cruelty to suffer them to be destroyed. It seems to be his opinion that it is no less inhuman to crush to death a harmless insect, whose only offence is that he eats the food which nature has provided for his sustenance, than it would be to kill a more bulky creature for the same reason. For the sensations of many insects are at least as exquisite as those of animals of more enlarged dimensions. The Millepedes rolls itself round upon the slightest touch; and the snail draws in her horns upon the least approach of the hand. Such instances of sensibility certainly confirm the observation of our inimitable Shakespeare, who teaches us that
—The poor beetle which we trated upon,
In corporal sufferance feels a pang as great
As when a giant dies.
But whilst we encourage these amiable feelings of the heart, we must not forget that humanity itself may be earned to an unreasonable, and even ridiculous extreme.
THE POET COLERIDGE RECALLS HIS CHILDHOOD
Authors: C. T. E. 
Published: December 2021

Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834) described himself as a precocious and imaginative child. Reading his recollection of himself as a child, one sees the emerging poet who was to become one of the most important and influential figures in the English Romantic movement.1
My father's sister kept an every-thing shop at Crediton—and there I read through all the gilt-cover little books that could be had at that time, and likewise all the uncovered tales of Tom Hickathrift, Jack the Giant-killer, etc. and etc. etc. etc.—and I used to lie by the wall, and mope—and my spirits used to come upon me suddenly, and in a flood—and then I was accumstomed to run up and down the church-yard, and act over all I had been reading on the docks, the nettles, and the rank-grass. At six years old I remember to have read Belisarius, Robinson Crusoe, and Philip Quarll—and then I found the Arabian Nights' entertainments—one tale of which (the tale of a man who was compelled to seek for a pure virgin) made so deep an impression on me (I had read it in the evening while my mother was mending stockings) that I was haunted by spectres whenever I was in the dark—and I distinctly remember the anxious and fearful eagerness with which I used to watch the window in which the books lay—and whenever the sun lay upon them, I would seize it, carry it by the wall, and bask, and read.
My father found out the effect which these books had produced—and burnt them.
THE PREVENTION OF ADOLESCENT PROBLEMS
Authors: Huessy Hans 
Published: December 2021

Most child rearing advice is built around the small, nuclear family. The family that plays, prays, camps together, stays together. Not long ago, families were much larger, frequently with many relatives living near and including maids and nannies.
Today's small family and great mobility have created special problems for adolescents. Many teenagers on their road to independence, go through a stage when their parents seem hopelessly out-dated and stupid. During this period, no parental advice is acceptable. In years past, other members of the extended family could substitute for the parents. Now teenagers are thrown on their peers for advice, peers trying to cope with the very same problems.
Parents should be told in the child's early years to help the child to develop lasting relationships with other adults to prepare for those adolescent years. When the time comes, these adults can give the very same advice which is unacceptable when it comes from the parents.
Well-to-do families use summer camps and boarding school to help ease them through this sometimes difficult period. Often these adolescents get along well at school and in other homes. Their own home is where things go badly. Rather than waiting until the problem gradually spreads, I would suggest placing the child in another home, perhaps exchanging adolescents, for a vacation period or a whole year. Successful programs, like the "Experiment in International Living," "Schoolboys Abroad," and the American Field Service have made this kind of experience available to well-to-do or gifted children who usually need it least.
The Process of Selecting Interns: From the Unknown to the Unknown
Authors: Korsch Barbara M. , Werner Edwenna R. , Adler Robert 
Published: December 2021

Each autumn program directors begin anew the task of recruiting and selecting housestaff. Tradition and common sense are the main guides of this process, there being little data regarding the most useful information to collect about applicants or the best method of ranking candidates. It is difficult for selection committees to evaluate their work since internship performance itself is difficult to assess and since the relationship between internship and later performance in pediatrics is unknown. Thus, selection decisions, presumed to be important to both pediatric programs and their housestaff, are based on uncertainty at every step.
A literature review and a recent survey of directors of 61 moderate-sized and large pediatric training programs has highlighted several problems in the current situation:
Lactobezoars
Authors: Babson S. Gorham , Reynolds John W. 
Published: December 2021

The two articles1,2 on lactobezoar in the April issue of Pediatrics presented the case histories of nine preterm infants with this complication. Other centers have apparently had similar experiences suggesting that occurrence of lactobezoar is on the increase.
An analysis of their articles indicates that seven of nine infants on the day of diagnosis of lactobezoar were receiving formula at the rate of 187 to 253 ml/kg/day on the basis of birth weight. Of the remainder, one received 133 mg/kg/day on the fifth day of life and the other received only 60 ml/kg/day on day 9.
ON THE FATHER ASSUMING PARTIAL RESPONSIBILITY IN THE REARING OF CHILDREN—AS VIEWED BY WILLIAM POTTS DEWEES IN 1825
Authors: C. T. E. 
Published: December 2021

Dr William Potts Dewees (1768-1841), the author of the first American work to deal with children’s health and disease in a scientific manner, had this to say about the failure of American fathers to assist their wives in rearing young children.1
Is it not both unfortunate, and unjust, that the responsibility and care of early education should so exclusively devolve on the mother? For it is every way sufficiently severe upon the female, to superintend the concerns of her establishment, if it be an object that these shall be well and economically managed, without the burden and perplexity of educating her children.
It is time then, that some changes should be made, which would tend to the relief of the over burdened mother; and this can be most profitably done, by the father partaking in this arduous and interesting duty. This would not only contribute to her relief, but would command a conformity from the child, which would be highly useful, to its future welfare.
Besides, the father from his education, and studies, is for the most part better qualified to direct and enforce, a proper system of physical education. But unfortunately at present, every thing connected with the nursery and education, "is voted a bore," by the modern fine gentleman; and the physical treatment of his children, is a duty he would feel almost disgraced to perform. Not so felt a Cato, an Augustus, a Henry the 4th, or a Montaigne: they felt it worthy of their most serious regard.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Wilkie Ormond L. 
Published: December 2021

The article by Dr Russell D. Snyder entitled "The Right Not To Read" (Pediatrics 63:791, 1979) and the accompanying editorial comment by Dr Melvin Levine (p 817), struck me as having completely missed the major problem in childhood education in America today. Dr Levine, in listing the sub-groups of children with reading failure, significantly lists " socioeconomic and cultural factors" as six in a list of seven sub-groups.
In 26 years of pediatric practice, including 17 years in the area of developmental disabilities, it seems rather obvious that American society, including the medical profession, stands culpable in witnessing the irreversible loss of cognitive ability in hundreds of thousands of children of the poor and of disadvantaged ethnic groups yearly due to "socioeconomic and cultural factors," placing our national priority instead on disorders that affect the upper class in relatively few numbers.
Brief Intubation Is Best
Authors: Weber Michel L. 
Published: December 2021

The article by Faden (Pediatrics 63:402, 1979) confirms once again very nicely that brief intubation and parenteral antimicrobial therapy can achieve excellent results in the treatment of acute epiglottitis.
Since we described our early experience,1,2 our group has now accumulated more than 100 cases (including one of my daughters), due to the high incidence ofthis disease in Montreal, particularly during the summer months. While we were gaining more experience, we have been able to reduce further the length of intubation, parenteral therapy, and hospitalization.
THE CAUSES OF AN OFFENSIVE BREATH IN CHILDREN, ACCORDING TO LOUIS STARR, A FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN PEDIATRIC SOCIETY
Authors: C. T. E. 
Published: December 2021

In his ambitious An American Text-Book of Diseases by American Teachers (1894), Louis Starr (1849-1925), of Philadelphia, called attention to the importance of smelling the child's breath. In the 1890s, the paucity of what we now consider routine laboratory tests made the physician far more dependent on the use of the sense of smell when confronted with a sick child than is the case nowadays.
Starr1 wrote:
The breath may become sour, catarrhal, foetic, gangrenous, ammoniacal, and stercoraceous. Sour breath is present, in infants more especially, when there is gastric fermentation. Catarrhal breath has numerous shades of difference. In chronic catarrh of the pharynx there is a "heavy" odor, not noticeable far from the patient's face. It is always most marked during and after sleep. Should there be associated follicular tonsillitis, the breath, while still heavy, becomes extremely offensive, with a scent somewhat like that of decaying cheese, and is very penetrating. This odor, too, is worse after sleeping. At the onset of acute catarrh of the stomach the breath has a vinous odor, at other times it is sweetish, and again it has the same quality as after an inhalation of ether. Later in the attack it becomes sour or has the odor of sulphuretted hydrogen. What is known as a "feverish breath," has a heavy, sweetish smell. It is met with in diseases of high temperature; thus, it is very marked and rapid in appearance in scarlatina.
Foetor of the breath is observed in its mildest form in such affections as aphthae and ulcerative stomatitis. It is better developed in ozaena and necrosis of the maxillary bones.
Necrosis of the Forearm Following Radial Artery Catheterization in a Patient with Reye's Syndrome
Authors: Mayer Thom , Matlak Michael E. , Thompson Joel A. 
Published: December 2021

The use of indwelling arterial catheters has become increasingly widespread in pediatric patients in recent years. As experience has expanded so has awareness of the complications that their use may entail. We report a case of a 9-month-old patient with Reye's syndrome who suffered diffuse microvascular compromise, which resulted in partial loss of an extremity following radial artery catheterization.
CASE REPORT
A 9-month-old male infant, previously in excellent health, was seen with a three-day history of rhinorrhea and cough, a one-day history of vomiting, and a 12-hour history of lethargy. When seen at a local hospital he had status left-sided focal seizures and a serum glucose of 17 mg/100 ml.
Child Abuse Intervention
Authors: Dunning Russell K. 
Published: December 2021

In Child Abuse Intervention: Conflicts In Current Practice and Legal Theory, the author has included inaccurate references to Lynch et al vs King et al, US District Court for Massachusetts, CA 78-2152-K (filed sub nom Lynch et al vs. Dukakis et al). Because of the potentially serious ramifications of such inaccuracies and of consequent misconceptions of the case, a response is merited.
By way of preface, let me disclaim adherence to the construct of a "privacy model" and a "medicolegal model" and to the proposition that the tenants of each are in conflict.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Barness Lewis A. 
Published: December 2021

Dr Houck is quite right in stating that there is little information on the actual vitamin requirements for low birth weight infants with a few exceptions.
One liter of most infant formulas contains somewhat more than the recommended daily allowances for a young term infant in the first few months of life. An infant taking one tenth this volume would, of course, receive very small amounts of vitamins; however, vitamins are necessary for growth and, in rapidly growing infants, the vitamin requirement would be expected to be increased.
Benefits of Breast Milk
Authors: Magnus Peter D. 
Published: December 2021

I was delighted to read of Dr Weichert's results in her article "Lactational reflex recovery in breast-feeding failure."1 All four infants would have been labeled "failure to thrive" in most pediatric centers with possible interruption of the precious lactation bond by formula supplements,2 as recent articles in the English literature have suggested.3,4
The Lact-Aid supplementer, utilized with all four mother-infant dyads, helped correct the problems of breast milk insufficiency and poor infant weight gain. The Lact-Aid is used not only to correct insufficiency and restore confidence, but also to alter sucking defects in babies who have not been acclimated to a constant pattern of good sucking.
What Is Proper Food for Human Infants?
Authors: Mittleman Richard S. 
Published: December 2021

This letter is in response to the article by Pisacana et al (Pediatrics 61:360, 1978) concerning the prevention of obesity in infancy.
I take issue with a number of statements, implications, and the general tone of this article. The authors seem to be suggesting that starting infants on solid food at 2 months of age and cow's milk at 3 months of age is a good thing to do because it may result in infants who weigh less (weigh less than whom or what?).
Medroxyprogesterone Acetate (Depo-Provera)
Authors: Segal Sydney , Anyan Walter R. , Cohen Sanford N. , Freeman John , Hill Reba M. , Kauffman Ralph E. , Mofenson Howard C. , Pruitt Albert W. , Shinefield Henry R. 
Published: December 2021

Members of the American Academy of Pediatrics have asked the Committee on Drugs to comment on the efficacy and the indications for use of the injectable progestin, medroxyprogesterone acetate (Depo-Provera), in adolescents. The Committee has reviewed the available data about the drug and assembled several possible indications for its use in adolescents. The Committee has found no conclusive evidence that Depo-Provera is harmful to humans, and it acknowledges that there is controversy about the potential, undesirable, long-term effects of the use of Depo-Provera that cannot be resolved by the extant data. The Committee also wishes to state that the lack of availability of Depo-Provera as an approved contraceptive agent hinders the provision of care needed by some adolescents in the United States.
The Committee believes that Depo-Provera—or a similar, long-acting contraceptive agent—can be invaluable to a small, well defined group of adolescents who need effective contraception and are unable to benefit from other methods. They may be at risk of participating in sexual activity unknowingly or unwillingly, or may be sexually active by choice. Some of these adolescents are intellectually impaired and pregnancy is especially unwanted. Conventional oral contraception may be difficult for retarded teen-agers. If there is no adult who will be responsible for administering oral contraceptives or protecting the vulnerable adolescent from sexual advances or from her own inability to estimate the consequences of unprotected sexual intercourse, the use of Depo-Provera is warranted. Menstrual flow creates a major emotional disturbance or hygienic problem for a small number of intellectually impaired adolescents (or for their caretakers), and the cessation of menstrual function—so often resulting from the continued use of Depo-Provera—may be a desirable side effect.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Holtzman Neil A. 
Published: December 2021

Let me first repeat what I said about children with a family history of premature cardiovascular disease:
By restricting cholesterol testing to those with positive family histories, fewer children will be unnecessarily treated, but whether those at risk will benefit from learning of the high probability that they will develop coronary disease or from diet modification is still unknown.
I agree with Dr Freis on the need for more information. Until that information is forthcoming I cannot agree that proper patient management involves labeling children at risk, selectively modifying their diets, or treating them with cholesterol-lowering drugs.
Prevalence of Lactose Intolerance in Children with Recurrent Abdominal Pain
Authors: Christensen M. Fjord 
Published: December 2021

Dr W. M. Liebman has reported an interesting study on lactose intolerance in children with recurrent abdominal pain (Pediatrics 64:43, 1979). His data suggest that lactose intolerance plays a contributory role in recurrent abdominal pain in children.
Recently I have performed an almost identical study on Danish children with recurrent abdominal pain with quite another result.1
Tolerance tests after oral lactose (2 gm/kg of body weight) were performed with parental consent on 50 children (22 girls and 28 boys, mean age 9.5 years) with recurrent abdominal pain and on 40 children (17 girls and 23 boys, mean age 9.6 years) without such pain.
A Randomized Controlled Trial of Prenatal Nutritional Supplementation
Authors: Jacobson Howard N. 
Published: December 2021

This report is the long-awaited presentation of the results of the major study on the use of nutritional supplementation to improve the outcomes of pregnancy. In this study, a nutritional supplement refers to the provision of specified amounts of nutrients in a formula made up as a beverage. The formula would be used to aid in the quantification of the dietary intake of nutrients under study, in this case calories and protein. The expectation was that the supplements would be consumed in addition to the diet normally consumed and that they would not displace foods normally eaten.
The study design was initially presented at a workshop on nutritional supplementation and the outcome of pregnancy and sponsored by the Committee on Maternal Nutrition, National Research Council, in November 1971.1
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Nelson John D. , Laird W. Pennock 
Published: December 2021

We did not state and we certainly did not mean to imply that patients with purulent pericarditis should be treated only with antibiotics. We agree with Drs Bass and Kaplan that surgery is an essential part of therapy; in fact, one of the references they cite supporting the need for surgical drainage is from this department.
We only speculated that, if the small effusions detected by our survey were infectious in origin, they must have been incipient infections aborted by antibiotic therapy since no patient progressed to symptomatic purulent pericarditis.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Kanof Abram 
Published: December 2021

With regard to the article by Cleary and Kohl (Pediatrics 64:301, 1979), is there a literature on such infection following circumcision by a licensed mohel, ritual circumcisor. In 45 years of pediatric practice in a largely Jewish area, I have never seen any occurrence. The only infection I have seen is minor oozing, easily controlled.
Perhaps the seventh day is the best time for the procedure, and the use of the Gomco clamp is the simplest and least traumatic.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Cleary Thomas G. , Kohl Steve 
Published: December 2021

We appreciate the interest in our report. We generally agree with the comments of Dr Woodside, although we are uncertain of the exact role surgery should play. Clearly if there is an abscess, necrotic gangrenous tissue, or subcutaneous crepitance surgery is crucial. For the infant who has cellulitis without these features a less aggressive approach seems reasonable.
In reference to the comments of Dr Kanof, the largest series evaluating the complications of ritual circumcision performed on day 8 by skilled mohelim comes from Jerusalem.
Ascorbic Acid, Dietary Restriction, and Upper Respiratory Tract Infection
Authors: Holborow P. L. 
Published: December 2021

The manipulation of diet to control hyperactive behavior in children has become popular, although not adequately proven.1-3 The use of vitamin C to control infections is in a similar state. A survey of children taking both a "low-salicylate" diet and vitamin C supplements has shown seemingly paradoxical changes in the incidence of sore throats and other upper respiratory illnesses.
Questionnaires were mailed to parents of children who had been maintained on a "low-salicylate" diet for at least six months, because of perceived hyperactivity.
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Gorlick Gary M. 
Published: December 2021

Regarding "Pregnancy and Abortion Counseling" (Pediatrics 63:920, 1979) I wish to inquire:
1. On page 920, "Information may not be offered to anyone, including the patient's parents, without the patient's permission." I have long wondered: At what age does this apply? What is the legality (answer) to this question for California? Does it vary from state to state?
2. On page 921, "Both premature parenthood and abortion during the formative adolescent years may have serious and long-term consequences."
Letters to the Editor
Authors: Harfi Harb 
Published: December 2021

We would like to point out that the children we studied were known asthmatics whose symptoms had been controlled with oral theophyllin with, or without beta II agonists. All these patients had received either epinephrine parenterally or isoproterenal with IPPB before their admission, indicating the failure of these agents to control their asthma attacks.
The dosage of aminophyllin was relatively low (4 mg/kg) and none of the patients had toxic symptoms. Changing the aminophyllin dosage based on measurement of serum theophyllin could have added another variable which is not our purpose from the study, ie, the effect of high doses versus conventional doses of corticosteroids.