HEALING THE WORLD’S CHILDREN McGill-Queen’s/Associated Medical Services Studies in the History of Medicine, Health, and Society Series Editors: S.O. Freedman and J.T.H. Connor Volumes in this series have financial support from Associated Medical Services, Inc. (AMS). Associated Medical Services Inc. was established in 1936 by Dr Jason Hannah as a pioneer prepaid not-for-profit health care organization in Ontario. With the advent of medicare, AMS became a charitable organization supporting innnovations in academic medicine and health services, specifically the history of medicine and health care, as well as innovations in health professional education and bioethics. 1 Home Medicine 10 Committed to the State Asylum The Newfoundland Experience Insanity and Society in Nineteenth- John K. Crellin Century Quebec and Ontario James E. Moran 2 A Long Way from Home The Tuberculosis Epidemic among 11 Jessie Luther at the Grenfell Mission the Inuit Edited by Ronald Rompkey Pat Sandiford Grygier 12 Negotiating Disease 3 Labrador Odyssey Power and Cancer Care, 1900–1950 The Journal and Photographs of Eliot Barbara Clow Curwen on the Second Voyage of Wilfred 13 For Patients of Moderate Means Grenfell, 1893 A Social History of the Voluntary Public Ronald Rompkey General Hospital in Canada, 1890–1950 4 Architecture in the Family Way David Gagan and Rosemary Gagan Doctors, Houses, and Women, 14 Into the House of Old 1870–1900 A History of Residential Care Annmarie Adams in British Columbia 5 Local Hospitals in Ancien Régime France Megan J. Davies Rationalization, Resistance, Renewal, 15 St Mary’s 1530–1789 The History of a London Teaching Daniel Hickey Hospital 6 Foisted upon the Government? E.A. Heaman State Responsibilities, Family 16 Women, Health, and Nation Obligations, and the Care of the Canada and the United States since 1945 Dependent Aged in Nineteenth-Century Edited by Georgina Feldberg, Molly Ontario Ladd-Taylor, Alison Li, and Kathryn Edgar-André Montigny McPherson 7 A Young Man’s Benefit 17 The Labrador Memoir of Dr Harry The Independent Order of Odd Fellows Paddon, 1912–1938 and Sickness Insurance in the United Edited by Ronald Rompkey States and Canada, 1860–1929 George Emery and J.C. Herbert Emery 18 J.B. Collip and the Development of Medical Research in Canada 8 The Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret Extracts and Enterprise The Campaign against Tuberculosis Alison Li in Canada, 1900–1950 Katherine McCuaig 19 The Ontario Cancer Institute Successes and Reverses at Sherbourne 9 The War Diary of Clare Gass, 1915–1918 Street Edited by Susan Mann E.A. McCulloch 20 Island Doctor 27 SARS in Context John Mackieson and Medicine in Memory, History, Policy Nineteenth-Century Prince Edward Island Edited by Jacalyn Duffin David A.E. Shephard and Arthur Sweetman 21 The Struggle to Serve 28 Lyndhurst A History of the Moncton Hospital, Canada’s First Rehabilitation Centre 1895 to 1953 for People with Spinal Cord Injuries, W.G. Godfrey 1945–1998 Geoffrey Reaume 22 An Element of Hope Radium and the Response to Cancer 29 J. Wendell Macleod in Canada, 1900–1940 Saskatchewan’s “Red Dean” Charles Hayter Louis Horlick 23 Labour in the Laboratory 30 Who Killed the Queen? Medical Laboratory Workers in the The Story of a Community Hospital Maritimes, 1900–1950 and How to Fix Public Health Care Peter L. Twohig Holly Dressel 24 Rockefeller Foundation Funding and 31 Healing the World’s Children Medical Education in Toronto, Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Montreal, and Halifax Health in the Twentieth Century Marianne P. Fedunkiw Edited by Cynthia Comacchio, Janet Golden, and George Weisz 25 Push! The Struggle for Midwifery in Ontario Ivy Lynn Bourgeault 26 Mental Health and Canadian Society Historical Perspectives James Moran/David Wright This page intentionally left blank Healing the World’s Children Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Health in the Twentieth Century Edited by CYNTHIA COMACCHIO, JANET GOLDEN, AND GEORGE WEISZ McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca © McGill-Queen’s University Press 2008 isbn 978-0-7735-3399-8 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3400-1 (paper) Legal deposit third quarter 2008 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities. Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Healing the world’s children : interdisciplinary perspectives on child health in the twentieth century/edited by Cynthia Comacchio, Janet Golden, and George Weisz. (McGill-Queen’s/Associated Medical Services studies in the history of medicine, health, and society; 31) Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7735-3399-8 (bnd) isbn 978-0-7735-3400-1 (pbk) 1. Children – Health and hygiene – History – 20th century. 2. Child health services – History – 20th century. I. Comacchio, Cynthia R., II. Golden, Janet Lynne, III. Weisz, George IV. Series. rj101.h42 2008 362.198'92'000904 c2008-900447-7 This book was typeset by Interscript in 10/13 Sabon. For our children and grandchildren This page intentionally left blank Contents Illustrations xi Figures and Tables xiii Acknowledgments xv Introduction Cynthia Comacchio, Janet Golden, and George Weisz 3 part one historical perspectives on child health 1 North American Perspectives on the History of Child Health in the Twentieth Century Neil Sutherland 17 2 Recent Work on the History of Childhood in Europe Catherine Rollet 50 3 Historiography of Infant and Child Health in Latin America Anne-Emanuelle Birn 73 part two constructing health and disability 4 aids Orphans, Raped Babies, and Suffering Children: The Moral Construction of Childhood in Post-Apartheid South Africa Didier Fassin 111 5 Cure and the Contempt of Goodwill: Reason and Feeling in Disability Narratives, 1850–1950 Tools of the Trade Laurie Block 125 x Contents part three hearing children’s voices 6 “It’s Back”: Children with Cancer Talking about Their Illness When Cure Is Not Likely Myra Bluebond-Langner and Megan Nordquest Schwallie 161 7 Size Matters: Medical Experts, Educators, and the Provision of Health Services to Children in Early to Mid-Twentieth Century English Canada Mona Gleason 176 part four measuring child health 8 More Than the Names Have Changed: Exploring the Historical Epidemiology of Intellectual Disability in the United States Jeffrey P. Brosco 205 9 Politics, Policy, and the Measuring of Child Health: Child Malnutrition in the Great Depression Richard A. Meckel 235 part five representing children in health and sickness 10 When the Children Are Sick, So Is Society: Dr Norman Bethune and the Montreal Circle of Artists Loren Lerner 253 11 From the Final Sleep to the First Steps: Postmortem Portraiture and Childhood and Amateur Photography Vincent Lavoie 282 Contributors 295 Index 297 Illustrations Nkosi Johnson, 2000 112 Suffering Children, 2000 115 Abused Babies, 2001 117 aids Orphans, 2002 121 “Getting Carried Home” 131 Girls at Letchworth Village, 1932 137 Templeton Colony, Massachusetts, circa 1900 138 Birthday Ball Magazine Covers 147 Norman Bethune, Scene 1: Womb and Fetus, 1927 256 Norman Bethune, Scene 3: Journey in Thick Wood: Childhood, 1927 257 Norman Bethune, Scene 8: Mirage Health and Happiness, Arizona, 1927 258 Norman Bethune, Night Operating Theatre, 1934 261 Fritz Brandtner, Dr. Norman Bethune: Operation at Sacré Coeur Hospital, 1933 262 Children from the Orthopaedic Ward of the Children’s Memorial Hospital, Montreal, 1939 266 Louis Muhlstock, Paranka, ca. 1932 268 xii Illustrations Louis Muhlstock, Young Boy with Tuberculosis, ca. 1932 269 Jori Smith, Girl Sitting in Rocking Chair (Quebec), ca. 1935 273 Jori Smith, Rose Fortin, 1935 274 Marian Scott, Study for The Endocrinology, ca. 1941–1945 276 William Notman, A.E. Gagnon’s Dead Child. Canada, 1882 284 William Notman and Son. Mrs Hill’s Dead Baby. Canada, 1889 286 Anonymous, Lady and Captain Crowie’s Dead Baby. Canada, 1868 287 William Notman and Son. Mr. Cleghorn’s Dead Child. Canada, 1900 288 William Notman and Son. Children Playing Croquet. Canada, 1911 290 William Notman and Son. Mrs Barnett’s Dead Child. Canada, 1911 291 Figures and Tables figures 1 Number of United States Federal Programs for Persons with Developmental Disabilities 206 2 United States Federal Spending for Persons with Developmental Disabilities (Thousands of u.s. Dollars, 1980) 207 3 Estimated Prevalence of id in the United States by Selected Causes (per Million Children) 212 4 Cases of id Expected to Arise by 10 Years of Age from Selected and All Causes (per Million Births) 214 5 Cross-Sectional Estimates of the Prevalence of id in the United States (per 1000 Persons) 215 6 Bell Curve Demonstrating Normal Distribution 217 7 Moderate-Severe vs. Mild id: Cross-sectional Estimates in the United States (per 100 Persons) 218 8 Effect of Adaptive Functioning on Prevalence of iq (per 1000 Persons) 220 9 The Flynn Effect: Mean iq Scores 222 10 Apparent Consequence of Flynn Effect on Prevalence of iq 222 xiv Figures and Tables tables 1 Causes of id with Specific Medical Interventions 211 2 Causes of id with Available Prenatal/Preconceptional Screening 224 Acknowledgments The essays in this collection grew out of the ams-McCord Colloquium, “Comparative and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Child Health in the Twentieth Century,” and the conversations begun there in October 2004. Organized jointly by the McCord Museum and McGill University, in Mon- treal, the meeting was sponsored financially by Associated Medical Services (ams) of Toronto. Associated with the opening of the museum’s exhibit, Growing up in Montreal, the colloquium brought together scholars in history, anthropology, sociology, medicine, film, cultural studies, and art history.