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20 Chapter 2 Theory and Formulas: Scientific Medicine and Breastfeeding, 1900–1920 I n the last half of the nineteenth century, physicians began to experiment with developing alternatives to breast milk, primarily for humanitarian reasons. The twentieth century marked the beginning of physicians’ becoming increasingly aware of social problems and becoming actively involved in addressing them. Among these social problems was infant mortality . Initially, physicians were eager to apply scientific principles to infant feeding in order to address the problem of infants dying in foundling institutions . Since the mid-1880s, scientists in Europe, the United States, and other parts of the world had begun to develop alternatives to breast milk for infants. At the end of the nineteenth century, Canadian scientists and medical professionalsincreasinglybecamepartofthesediscussions ,begantoapplythisnew scientific knowledge in their practices, and began to engage in debates about theories of infant feeding. And, at the beginning of the twentieth century, the application of scientific principles to problems of infant feeding became the focus of paediatrics, a new medical specialty. Gradually, paediatricians became known as scientific experts on infant feeding, and they developed a range of modified cow’s-milk and customized formulas for infants. While scientific medicine acknowledged the superiority of breastfeeding, many of the new theories and practices indirectly questioned the properties of breast milk and the ability of mothers to successfully breastfeed. Early Paediatrics in Canada Although paediatrics was a well-established field in the United States by the turn of the century (the American Pediatric Society was formed in 1888), paediatrics in Canada was much less formalized. During the 1800s, hospitals andmedicalfacultiesbegantobeconcernedwiththedevelopmentandcareof the child, but it was not until the turn of the century that the first clinical and faculty positions dedicated exclusively to paediatrics were established. The Montreal General Hospital, established in 1822, was one of the first hospitals 21 Theory and Formulas: Scientific Medicine and Breastfeeding, 1900–1920 to focus on the development and care of children, and Dr. A.D. Blackader was the physician “put in charge of the children’s services” (McKendry and Bailey 1990) at the hospital. Although he was a lecturer in paediatrics at McGill University and had served as president of the American Pediatric Society from 1892 to 1893, it was not until 1912 that he became professor of paediatrics in McGill’s Faculty of Medicine. The Faculty of Medicine at Laval University in Quebec City was founded in 1852. Although it offered some education on the care of infants up to the age of six months, it did not offer a formal clinical teaching course until 1879. In 1895, Dr. René Fortier received the first chair of paediatrics in Canada and became professor of paediatrics at Laval. Parallel to the development of formal positions in paediatrics, the first large children’s hospitals were established. Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children was founded in 1875, Montreal’s Children’s Hospital in 1902 and L’hôpital Ste-Justine pour les enfants in 1907, Winnipeg’s Children’s Hospital in 1909, and the Children’s Hospital in Halifax in 1910. Although departments of paediatrics existed prior to 1920, individual physicians were usually self-taught and were involved in the treatment of children due to personal interest. In the 1900s, a new generation of physicians went abroad to gain formal training in the field of paediatrics. Individuals went to major centres in the United States and western Europe, including New York, Boston, London, Munich, and Berlin, to learn the science of infant feeding. Alan Brown (1887–1959) was the first Canadian physician to go abroad for formal training in paediatrics; he was later followed by Alton Goldbloom (1890– 1968). Brown became the chief of paediatrics at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto (a position that he held for thirty-two years), while Goldbloom became the physician-in-chief at Children’s Memorial Hospital and professor of paediatrics in Montreal. The students of these two individuals became part of a new generation of paediatricians, all of whom had formal scientific training in infant feeding (Kingsmill 1995). Although the number of paediatricians in Canada was small during the first part of the twentieth century, the influence of this first generation of formally trained paediatricians on the evolution of paediatrics was enormous. At the time of Alan Brown’s retirement in 1951, 75 percent of practising paediatricians in Canada had received part or all of their training under his leadership (Kingsmill 1995). And, as infant feeding was the central concern of this specialty, paediatricians were...

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