In ancient times physicians wrote primarily on the care of infants, and only incidentally about children’s diseases, because their concept of medicine stressed the maintenance of health rather than the diagnosis of specific disease entities (for medical perspectives on children during antiquity, see Etienne 1973). The earliest of these “pediatric” texts known to us was that of Soranus of Ephesus (active around A.D. 100), On Gynecology, which included 23 chapters on infant care (see Soranus 1956; also Ruhräh 1925; Still 1931; Garrison 1965; Peiper 1966). First, Soranus gave instructions on sectioning the umbilical cord, feeding, swaddling, choosing a wet nurse (if necessary), bathing the baby, and other activities essential to infant care. Then he discussed the treatment of common disorders of infancy, including teething, rashes, and “flux of the belly,” or diarrhea.

Soranus was a leader of the Methodist sect at a time when Greek medicine was enlivened by various contending schools of thought. Methodism taught that disease was due to excessive relaxation or contraction of internal pores of the body, leading to immoderate secretion and moisture in the first instance and to diminished secretion and dryness in the second. The cause of disease was considered unimportant, stress being laid instead on treatment that, crudely put, consisted of inducing the contrary state, drying the moist or humidifying the dry. In his section on infant management, Soranus concentrated on the practicalities of care and treatment without slavish adherence to the tenets of Methodism. The result was a pragmatic guide uncomplicated by theoretical or speculative overtones.