The oldest children’s hospital in the Americas

Abstract

Considering the history of medicine, pediatrics is relatively a recent discipline and so are the institutions devoted to it. The “Spedale degli Innocenti” (Florence, 1419) was the fi rst institution devoted to child care; and is not by chance that it was an orphanage, because the “hospital” concept was then more related to hosting and careing than to health. It was in the 19th century when the pediatric hospitals, as we know them today, appear in Europe (L'Hôpital Des Enfants-Malades, Paris, 1802) and North America (Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 1855); surprisingly “Casa Cuna” (Hospital de Niños Pedro de Elizalde, Buenos Aires, 1779) was already there, witnessing the foundation of both institutions