ABSTRACT
One of the most significant recent invasions of medicine is the well child. Particularly in pediatrics the doctor is no longer content to focus attention solely upon the disease germ which has invaded the body. A mother seeks a doctor's advice concerning the child's behavior and misbehavior as well as when he has an elevation of temperature. S. Freud's generalization, for example, that the symptoms of the oral pervert may be due to the repression of "perverse" fantasies has led to some of the most fatuous assertions concerning the normal sucking habits of infants. The struggle between higher and lower brain centers for the control of behavior is evident in all the early motor achievements of the infant. The parallel between biologic or organic growth processes and social and educational development can be even more convincingly observed in the early behavior development of our own human babies.
