It is reported that the Kahun papyrus, written around 1825
B.C., proposed some specifi c treatments for what was then
considered obscure childhood disease. For example, chewing
a fi eld mouse was the recommended remedy for teething
pain!
Thereafter, it took quite some time to establish pediatric
medicine as a specialty. The incentive to concentrate on
problems of children developed in the 18th century in
Germany and France; in the United States, a German native,
Abraham Jacobi (1830-1919), gave the fi eld such impetus
that he is hailed as the father of American pediatrics.