Citation

Williams AN, Griffin NK. Child Abuse Negl. 2008; 32(10): 920-924.

Affiliation

Department of Pediatrics, Northampton General Hospital, Billing Road, Northampton, United Kingdom NN1 5BD.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2007.12.007

PMID

18990446

Abstract

The purpose of this short article is to explore 19th century cases of likely or certain child abuse which were either not considered as such at the time, or if confirmed, sadly forgotten until the rediscovery of child abuse as a serious paediatric condition in the latter half of the 20th century. The 19th century marked the dawn of industrialization upon the world, and the effects of this upon society and its attitudes during this period were dramatic. The great French novelist Victor Hugo saw "the three problems of the age -- the degradation of man by poverty, the ruin of woman by starvation and the dwarfing of childhood by physical and spiritual night" (Hugo, 1998). Reviewing 19th century medical literature provides evidence of the clinical presentation of children who were probably abused.

In 1860, Ambroise Tardieu (1818-1879), Professor of Legal Medicine at the University of Paris presented a long paper describing 32 cases of clear child abuse of whom 18 died. Tardieu gave a clear breakdown of the different violent methods used, the considerable variety of pathology seen and the parental denial and indifference to the suffering of their children.

Child abuse is now recognized as a problem that all of society must address. In the 19th century, there were clear descriptions of child abuse, including its pathology and post mortem consequence. The great tragedy, beyond that to the innumerable children concerned, was the interval between Tardieu's paper and when child abuse became recognized and accepted by the medical profession as a serious child health problem and a major challenge for society as a whole.

The historical literature on child abuse is still far from complete, as new sources arise from medical historians and those with an interest in the history of childhood. There is still a great deal of resistance to society's acceptance of child abuse in spite of the official medical recognition of this condition. Indeed, the existence of some aspects of child abuse, such as factitious disorder by proxy for a psychiatric diagnosis applicable to the fabricator, is still continuously denied in some quarters, using medically preposterous alternative explanations.

[[SafetyLit note: For example, see letters to the editor and essays by Michael D. Innis that deny the existance of Shaken Baby Syndrome: http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/324/7328/41#20719 : : http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/325/7361/430#25066 ]]

Language: en