HISTORY OF THE PREMATURE INFANT NURSERY IN THE U.S.

这一提议寻求支持撰写一部关于美国历史的专著

This proposal seeks support for a monograph on the history of the premature infant mursery in the United States between 1890 and 1960. The project represents an extension of an earlier study on neonatal care before the First World War. Specifically, what this proposal requests is partial salary support for three years to free the principal investigator from clinical responsibilities. The modern intensive care nursery has generated considerable controversy among ethicists and policy-makers. These concerns have a suprisingly long historical back-ground dating back to the invention of the incubator in the 1880s. Yet, nor professional historian has written a history of the subject. The proposed monograph will seek to explain the striking swings of opinion that have characterized the attitudes of physicians and the public towards neonatal technology from 11890 to 1960. The pediatricians of 1910, most of whom believed that incubators did more harm than good, may be contrasted with those of the 1940s, whose aggressive use of oxygen led to the inadvertent blinding of thousands of premature infants before the gas's toxicity was recognized. The premature infant nursery thus offers potential for an intriguing case study of how clinical medicine changes in relation to basic science, social institutions, and cultural values. The study will conclude by assessing the continuing influence of the earlier phases of premature care upon specialty of neonatology today, and should be of interest not only to medical historians but also physicians, health care policy- makers, and ethicists. My method will draw from the perspectives of both intellectual and social history. It will highlight the academic clinicians who were most responsible for developing new ideas and therapies in neonatal medicine. The efforts of clinicians to improve technology will be viewed in both a scientific and social context. Such an approach will take into account the contributions of other child advocates, particularly the many women involved in the nursing profession and infant welfare movement.