"Citizens! Do you want children's doctors?" An early vindication of "paediatric" specialists.

When the young French physician Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert (1741-1814) addressed his readers in 1772, he probably had little hope of a positive response. His appeal, quoted from his Plan de recherches sur l'art de conserver la sante des enfans, de preserver & gue'rir leurs maladies, reads, "Citizens! Are you ready to let your children's doctor collect the data that are required in order to lay the foundations of the huge building that has to be erected?" (p. 268). Such a question might well give the impression that Gilibert's essay was addressed to the public at large. Rather, it was intended for other physicians who might be prepared to act according to his Plan de recherches. Before trying to show why this little-noticed text in the early history of paediatrics is worthy of special attention, let us briefly look at its author. Jean-Emmanuel Gilibert, born in Lyons in 1741, studied medicine in Montpellier, where he earned his MD in 1763. The subject of his dissertation was: On the power of nature in the treatment ofdiseases. He settled in the small town of Chazay d'Azergues near Lyons, where he conducted assiduous botanical research, as well as an active medical practice. In 1768 he was offered a teaching position in Lyons, and lectured on botany for several years. On the recommendation of the Swiss scholar Albrecht von Haller, he was called to Poland by King Stanislas Poniatowsky in 1775, and served as Professor of Materia Medica, first in Grodno and later Vilnius. On his return to Lyons in 1782, Gilibert was appointed physician at the Hotel-Dieu. He was also "Medecin des Epidemies", member of the Academy of Lyons, and Professor at the College of Medicine there. In 1789 he immersed himself in politics, which endangered his career, and even his life. He was mayor of Lyons for a short period that included the famous siege of the town by the Republican army. When the town was taken in October 1793, Gilibert barely escaped Lyons, and a life sentence. One and a half years later, he returned and resumed his medical career there.