Ruhräh reminds us that the three patron saints of prophylactic pediatrics are Pemell, Cadogan and Armstrong. Armstrong, in 1769, when he created his Dispensary for the Infant Poor, said, "I did not confine myself to the therapeutic or curative part of physic only. I likewise extended my care to the prophylactic branch, or that which concerns the prevention of disease." Caulfield's comment on Armstrong's Dispensary is that "no charitable institution was ever established whereby so much good has been done, or so many lives saved at so small an expense."
In the past, the appeal to a hospital was to heal; at the present, the command to the hospital is to prevent. The day is here when all hospitals treating children should be actively interested in prophylactic pediatrics as well as in the restoration of the sick child to health, for the prevention of disease is both an important and