ABSTRACT

The history of pediatric contributions to nutritional science is much too rich to relate in a brief presentation. The history that has been handed down to people shows that he first made known his findings by publishing his observations in a very brief letter to the Lancet in December, 1831. He had to make all the equipment and solutions himself while carrying on a busy practice. This landmark in medicine constitutes the first example of someone solving a problem by gathering data on human subjects and initiating the therapeutic process. Thomas Morgan Rotch—the Pediatric Professor of Harvard—built his career on infant nutrition using “percentage feeding,” which primarily kept women out of the work place because they had to figure out in his complicated system what to feed the baby each day. The “return to nature” movement of the late 1960s and 1970s brought a welcome return to breast feeding which, unfortunately, again appears to be eroding.