ABSTRACT
Who could have imagined the influence of James Simpson’s publication in 1968 on the successful nonoperative treatment of select children presumed to have splenic injury. Initially suggested in the early 1950s by Tim Warnsborough, then Chief of General Surgery at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, it is remarkable to consider that the era of non-operative management for pediatric spleen injury began with the report of 12 children treated between 1956 and 1965. The diagnosis of splenic injury in this select group was made by clinical findings together with routine laboratory and plain x-ray findings. It should be borne in mind that the report predated ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), or isotope imaging.
