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steffilietzke's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
4.5
emily_koopmann's review against another edition
emotional
informative
medium-paced
3.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Medical content and Child death
anna_hepworth's review against another edition
2.0
This is not the book I was promised. It was obsessively focused on the USA, despite the original summary that caused me to pick it up implying it was going to be a global survey of the history of paediatric medicine (if I had been sufficiently familiar with the names mentioned, that might have been obvious). The historical sections gloss over what was happening elsewhere, except for very short sections, usually a sentence long, none more than a paragraph. There were also a lot of times where I was bemused that what I've read about American medical research (in medical journals) paints a much less rosy picture that this -- there were times when I wondered if the author had looked outside their own demographic (there is mention of some of it, but argh). One section that talks exclusively about US and UK writings on child death seems to think that these are representative of the whole world (also: author is not a literary scholar and certainly, from the works quoted, doesn’t seem to have gone very far from a very limited literary ‘classics’ collection, talking about them in a way that assumed familiarity with all of the works -- I, as a middle aged middle class white Anglo Australian missed most of the references)
I would recommend against reading the introduction/first two chapters, as not being relevant to the thesis of the book. My reading notes on the intro say:
I would recommend against reading the introduction/first two chapters, as not being relevant to the thesis of the book. My reading notes on the intro say:
wow is there some willing ignorance here - that there are no child deaths due to the various ills like poor water, poor nutrition etc. There is acknowledgement that the death rates are higher in poor and marginalised communities, but there isn't the recognition about how inaccessible some of the medical treatments are for populations both within and without the USA.
Chapter two, for inexplicable reasons, is entirely about the American civil war. Includes abhorent details of the treatment of African American women, including what reads as medical research without consent. From my reading notes:
I am bemused at how this chapter's recounting in detail the mistreatment of people under the American slavery system counts as either science or public health
Sections I did like: The sections on scarlet fever and diptheria were fascinating; slightly more European history there, not least because that is where some of the dramatic discoveries were made, and it is harder to gloss over them. I noted that P252 had an interesting discussion of ethics (which: I don't remember whether this was because it was the only mention, or because I had been so horrified at the lack of mention of ethics in other sections, but that I'm referencing a single page is concerning).
Content Warnings
Moderate: Medical trauma
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