De geschiedenis van de kindergeneeskunde in Nederland. Deel I: de periode tot 1700.By M. J. Van Lieburg (Rotterdam: Erasmus Publishing, 1997. 349pp.). The entire history of child medicine - until the present - in the Netherlands was due to appear, in one volume, at the occasion of the centennial of the Vereniging voor Kindergeneeskunde in 1992. However, Van Lieburg took up his commission very thoroughly, so five years later the first of a three-volume work emerged, dealing with the period up to 1700. The book's principal sources are medical writings, which, since the invention of printing, exclusively mean published works. Van Lieburg not only consulted treatises devoted entirely to children's health Children's Health Definition Children's health encompasses the physical, mental, emotional, and social well-being of children from infancy through adolescence. , but also scrutinized books on general medicine, including those by foreigners Foreigners alienage the condition of being an alien. androlepsy Law. the seizure of foreign subjects to enforce a claim for justice or other right against their nation. gypsyologist, gipsyologist Rare. published in Dutch translation, for passages about the diseases or discomforts of children. For the period dealt with in the volume, the latter category overwhelmingly predominates. The passages cited refer to anything connected with children, from measles measles or rubeola (r  bē`ələ), highly contagious disease of young children, caused by a filterable virus and spread by droplet spray from the nose, mouth, to childbirth and inborn inborn /in·born/ (in´born?)1. genetically determined, and present at birth. 2. congenital. in·born adj. 1. Possessed by an organism at birth. 2. defects. The result is an encyclopedic en·cy·clo·pe·dic adj. 1. Of, relating to, or characteristic of an encyclopedia. 2. Embracing many subjects; comprehensive: "an ignorance almost as encyclopedic as his erudition" work, written with great erudition er·u·di·tion n. Deep, extensive learning. See Synonyms at knowledge. Erudition of editors—Hare. Noun 1. , as the author's other publications are. It is hardly a contribution to the history of childhood though. The book's real field is the history of medical thought and philosophy. This book, then, is not social history as it is commonly understood. Themes such as the medical market, popular among social historians, hardly get attention. To be sure, Van Lieburg does not write a traditional history of professional progress. He is aware of the cultural significance of magical healing, for example, and cites recent studies devoted to this subject. On the other hand, he regularly praises contemporary authors for their great contribution to child medicine. There is no attempt to explain how they were able to acquire their knowledge, as there is little analysis throughout the book. For a large part it consists of literal quotations from the sources, several pages long sometimes. Van Lieburg's principal aim is to show that much more has been written on children's health than earlier authors on medical history assumed. He certainly succeeded in that mission. For social historians of medicine, his book will be an invaluable reference work. Pieter Spierenburg Erasmus University Erasmus University Rotterdam is a university in the Netherlands, located in Rotterdam. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th century humanist and theologian. Rotterdam |
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