The history of medicine and surgery remains well documented, but this volume offers the first specific exploration of the treatment of and attitudes towards children with injuries and birth defects through the ages. Popular thought holds that children in ancient times with birth defects faced a short life of abandonment or neglect. Examination of written records from ancient Egypt, India, Greece, and Islam, however, shows that physicians and surgeons have attempted to find remedies to cure ailing youths from the beginning of recorded medical history. These essays document the origins of...