Historical Perspectives: The Underpinnings of Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine

Introduction

With this issue of NeoReviews, we introduce a feature that should be of interest to all who deal with neonates. “Historical Perspectives: The Underpinnings of Neonatal/Perinatal Medicine” is series of reviews that will feature commentary on important contributions from the past. In many cases, we have been able to persuade the author (or one of the authors) of the original contribution to comment on the environment into which the idea was introduced. In other cases, the author(s) is (are) dead, and we have asked a noted authority on the subject or a former colleague to provide the comments.

As our subspeciality has matured, so much has become entrenched in our approach to care that it is difficult to recall (or be reminded) of how different it was not too long ago. Especially for those who have recently embarked on a career in neonatology, it is worth remembering that we all owe a debt of gratitude to the pioneers of our discipline.

Our first commentary comes “from the grave” about a figure who looms large in the assessment of neonates throughout the world: Virginia Apgar. L. Stanley James wrote the piece featured in this issue, which was published originally in a series developed by Dewey Sehring of Ross Laboratories entitled “Landmarks in Perinatology/Neonatology” about 25 years ago. Dr Apgar originally proposed a new method for evaluating the neonate in 1952 and published it in 1953. Thus, this historical perspective might serve as a 50th anniversary celebration. After Dr Apgar died in 1974, Stan James published an appreciation in Pediatrics. Subsequently, Dr James, who collaborated on further evaluation of the Apgar score (published in 1958 and 1962), has died. Another suitable candidate to write about Virginia Apgar would have been Joe Butterfield, who was so influential in pushing the United States …