Word: spock
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1950-1959
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Present politics and politicians will fade away . . . but Dr. Benjamin Spock and his common sense on child care will continue to bring peace of mind to U.S. mothers for years to come ... I would like to nominate Dr. Spock...
...SPOCK calls his lifework "preventive psychiatry." His book on baby care was conceived as a phase of that work and, like half a dozen other projects, was carried out in his spare time. He started it during a summer vacation and worked on it practically every night for two years, from nine until after midnight, dictating to his wife to give it an easy, conversational tone. He finished it after joining the Navy in 1944 as a psychiatrist in charge of severe disciplinary cases. When he got his overseas orders, the book had still to be indexed. The publishers urged...
...looked in 1933 as though no one wanted a pediatrician with or without psychiatry. For several years Spock failed to make enough money to pay his Manhattan office rent. Then, one by one, patients came, and both mothers and children throve on the friendliness and reassurance of the young doctor who was as interested in finding out how a boy got along with his new baby sister as he was in giving inoculations. He was something of a presence, especially to little girls. "When he patted the glands in your throat, you felt you'd been blessed...
...SPOCK no longer takes private patients. A year ago he became Professor of Child Development in the medical school of the University of Pittsburgh, with a free hand to inject a shot of child psychiatry wherever he can in the city. Directly or indirectly, he reaches thousands of children in schools, clinics, and hospitals. He likes to work with only a few people at a time, and can often be found in a basement room of a city public-health center, sitting in a circle of painted wooden chairs with a dozen a workers, nurses, doctors and interns, balancing...
Some doctors point out that much of his advice is intuitive, since little is known about the emotional life of children. A few mothers complain that he makes things sound too easy. But the book sales click along as steadily as the birth rate, and Dr. Spock gets a daily drift of thank-you letters from grateful parents. Their children have yet to be heard from...