A Course to Improve Humanity: The École de Puériculture and the Transnational Development of Preventive Pediatrics

François SECCO

Abstract: From 1921 to 1939, a course intended to create a new professional group was organized in a pioneering institution called the École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris. Over a period of nineteen years, some 500 physicians and medical students from every continent were trained in puericulture, the science of the conservation and improvement of the human species through biomedical management to ensure the normal development of individuals. In this article, I show that the École de Puériculture was a site that was part of transnational processes of circulation of medical ideas and practices linked to eugenics and preventive care. I argue that the course organized for physicians and medical students contributed to shaping the development and conception of preventive pediatrics during the interwar period. The school’s directors and alumni disseminated the content of this course in books and journal articles, and promoted, in cross-national medical circles, practices designed to measure the quality of children.

Keywords: eugenics,puericulture, preventive pediatrics, interwar period, international student mobility, higher education institution

Introduction

In 1933, an article published in La Presse médicale reported on the inauguration of the new premises of a French organization created in the aftermath of the First World War: “as it stands, the School of Puericulture […] has its equivalent in no other country in the world. The city of Paris can be proud of it[1]”. Puericulture (puériculture) is a term coined by Alfred Caron in the early 1860s[2]. The term was popularized by Adolphe Pinard (1844–1934), who began using it in 1895[3], and his colleagues. Pinard defined puericulture as “the science whose object is the research of knowledge relevant to the reproduction, conservation, and improvement of the human species[4]”, and divided its scope into three parts: puericulture before procreation, puericulture from procreation to birth, and puericulture after birth. Puericulture was one of the many emerging medical sciences of the child[5], which sought to reduce infant mortality through the application of results of scientific investigations[6]. It became an approach to eugenics in various countries in Europe, especially Southern Europe, Latin America, as well as in other countries such as the Philippines[7]. Eugenicists who promoted puericulture in these parts of the world stressed the importance of both hereditary and environmental factors in assessing an individual’s eugenic quality, and advocated educational policies relating to infant care and care of the body in order to improve individual and collective health. This geographical distribution was partly due to physicians and medical students who studied in other countries and then introduced the term puericulture or its applications in their respective countries. Student mobility can be considered as one aspect of the transnational sphere, that is the “permeable space situated between and beyond the governments and intergovernmental relations and domestic policies[8].” The literature regularly notes the role of the teaching of French physicians before the First World War in this early process of circulation of puericulture[9], that is to say the “process of give and take among multiple authors who are linked in particular professional, political, and practical circles[10]”. However, little has been written about the École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris (School of Puericulture of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris; hereinafter referred to as École de Puériculture or school), an institution partly dedicated to the training of puericulture specialists (puericulturists), half of whose students were not French[11].

This article explores how the students and directors of the École de Puériculture contributed to the transnational circulation of certain eugenic ideas and practices. By teaching the same puericulture course to physicians and medical students from different geographical backgrounds almost every year between the two world wars, and by carrying out associative and editorial activities designed to reach pediatricians and other puericulturists, the École de Puériculture became a site where (future) child specialists learned and practiced a form of preventive care based on the constant monitoring of the individual to ensure the “normal development” of the child, defined as an idealized medical and social goal.

The Construction of a Unique Model

In 1918, before the end of the First World War, the American Red Cross approached Henri Roger, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine of Paris, with a proposal to donate funds for the construction of a building “whose purpose would be to improve and stabilize hygiene propaganda, in its broadest sense, in favor of the child in France[12]”. This proposal was in line with the American Red Cross’s interest in helping build efficient welfare organizations in other countries, as well as with the broader movement of American institutions and foundations funding projects related to biomedical sciences and the training of nurses and physicians[13]. Benjamin Weill-Hallé (1875–1958), who was working at an American base during the war, heard about the project and met Roger to describe his “still very confused project” for an Institute of Puericulture[14]. Receiving Roger’s approval, he negotiated with the American Red Cross. The École de Puériculture opened on July 1, 1919, as part of a Franco-American foundation. This school was supported, in addition to the American Red Cross, by prominent philanthropic, political and medical figures. Selskar Gunn, vice-president of the Rockefeller Foundation, was even one of the vice-presidents of the foundation’s executive committee. Adolphe Pinard was the school’s first director until his death. He was succeeded by Benjamin Weill-Hallé, until then deputy director. Initially housed in barracks destined for demolition, the École de Puériculture moved to new, purpose-built premises on Boulevard Brune, inaugurated by the President of the Republic in 1933.

The denomination “school of puericulture” covered several organizational realities that flourished during the interwar period. The school described in this article was simultaneously a medical and social institution, a higher education institution, and a medical research center. The École de Puériculture was not the only school of puericulture as characterized in this article. However, it served as a model for other projects. Indeed, it was an inspiration for Emmanuel Lambadarios, a leading figure in paedology in Greece and director of the school hygiene service at the Greek Ministry of Education, when he proposed to create puericulture centers in the 1920s[15]. In Romania, the chair of puericulture was attached to a medico-social institute under the direction of the country’s first professor of puericulture, Titu Gane[16], who sent some of his students to study at the École de Puériculture.

From the Reduction of Infant Mortality to the Normal Development of the Child

One of the school’s purposes was to train a new type of physician specialized in childhood, at a time when pediatrics was sometimes still equated with the medical specialty of children’s diseases. As a higher education institution, the École de Puériculture offered two main programs, one for nurses, and one for physicians and medical students. The second program consisted of a “complementary course” (also called “physicians’ course”) first organized during the 1920–1921 academic year, and consisting of lectures given over one or two months, and completed with mandatory visits and internships in relevant medical wards during approximately a year. Students who passed the exam received a diploma in puericulture delivered by the Faculty of Medicine and the École de Puériculture. In 1929, a semester-long puericulture course for medical students taught by Weill-Hallé was offered by the Faculty of Medicine. From 1920 to 1939, between 19 and 44 physicians and medical students took the course every year. The lectures were the translation of Pinard’s definition of puericulture and Weill-Hallé’s description of its role:

Protect the child from before conception, ensure its full development in the mother’s womb, avoid all unfortunate incidents at birth, control and promote its growth once it is born, ward off the dangers inherent in the external environment and social life, help guide it during adolescence[17].

It included lectures on demography, eugenics, breastfeeding, physical education, the classification of “abnormal” children, intellectual development, school medicine, orthopedics, disease prophylaxis, odontology, child protection institutions and their organization in France, and vocational guidance[18]. The course thus consisted of a myriad of domains of knowledge borrowed from various parts of medicine and other sciences. The course reflected the puericulturists’ perception of themselves as child physicians. In his lecture entitled “Puericulture and its Evolution”, Weill-Hallé asserted that the time for the fight against infant mortality was over, and that it was time to focus on the fight for the normal child through prevention before and after birth[19]. Puericulturists must be familiar with all the changes experienced by the individual during childhood, and not simply be a specialist in children’s diseases. This means that the aim of the puericulture physician was in fact not the prevention of disease, but the healthy development of the child, which presupposed defining and characterizing the concept of normal development.

The École de Puériculture was conceived in this perspective, as the model for the modern child healthcare institution. The school was structured around the three parts of puericulture defined by Pinard materialized by three dispensaries, respectively for the ante-natal period, infancy, and children aged 3 to 15, to which were added a breastfeeding wing, ophthalmological, otorhinolaryngological, mental prophylaxis and vaccination units, as well as an odontology ward. The building became a major healthcare facility in the 15^th arrondissement of Paris, where it was located. In 1937, 23,087 consultations were recorded[20]. Puericulturists emphasized the effect of environmental factors, living conditions, nutrition and physical activity, in the onset and evolution of “defects”. Individual hygiene was described as a crucial factor in disease prevention. As Gina Greene notes, such buildings dedicated to children’s health were not only part of the process of medicalizing maternity and the bodies of women and children, but were also the materialization of a particular imaginary of the child and the role of medical practitioners[21]. In one of his lectures, Weill-Hallé advocated the distribution of health booklets (carnets de santé) to everyone, so that physicians and parents could record – and, in the future, refer to – the dates of vaccinations, as well as height, weight, and mental capacities measurements, in order to “distinguish from the mass of subjects those who are a heavy burden for educators and find no opportunity, in the common classroom, to improve their lot[22]”. In addition, he described this document as “a preface to vocational guidance or to the prenuptial examination[23]”. Through the various wards and dispensaries, physicians could monitor the development of the individual during what they viewed as childhood – from before procreation to the end of adolescence – by means of consultations and measurements. The physician’s role was therefore to create a scientifically constructed and regularly updated understanding of one’s health throughout their childhood, and inform parents on how to preserve, or restore, their child’s normal development.

From the World to the World: The École de Puériculture as a Hub for International Student Mobility

The École de Puériculture was founded at a time of intense student mobility within and towards Europe. Since the mid-nineteenth century, French universities have pursued a policy of welcoming foreign students as a means of enhancing national prestige and promoting French science and culture in the world[24]. During the first half of the twentieth century, France attracted a large number of foreign students, perceived as emissaries of the culture and language of the country in which they studied[25]. The agreement between the school and the Faculty of Medicine explicitly allowed foreigners to study at the school. This population of students from all continents was a source of pride. Benjamin Weill-Hallé hoped it would contribute to “the improvement of the conditions of childhood far beyond [France’s] borders[26]”. The training of physicians specializing in puericulture from different parts of the world contributed both to the circulation, between countries, and to the dissemination, among the population, of hygienic ideas, in general, and puericulture, in particular. After graduating, some students published books on puericulture, such as Gaston Lapierre and Axente Iancu, both of whom mentioned their French teachers in their books[27]. In 1932, Benjamin Weill-Hallé stated that 334 doctors and medical students had enrolled in the complementary puericulture course since the school opened, and that 254 had graduated[28]. For the period 1925–1939, only 42% of the students were French. In addition to France, students generally came from Southern European countries and the Balkans, which were the main European countries from which students came to study medicine in France[29]. Similarly, a significant proportion of students came from the French colonies. Moreover, numerous students came from Latin American countries. It can be explained by the influence of the French language and medicine in this region[30]. Some students even came from Canada, China, Egypt and Japan. In contrast, none of the students mentioned in the school’s archives came from the United States or Germany. Only one, Iacovos Phaedonos, born in Cyprus, was recorded as coming from England. The students at the École de Puériculture therefore reflected both the trends in international student mobility towards France during the interwar period, and the countries where puericulture had become an approach to eugenics.

Building Professional and Scientific Networks

The constitution of a professional group was only one dimension of the attempt to build a network by means of the École de Puériculture. Two others can be examined. Firstly, former students attempted to strengthen the link between those who held the diploma in puericulture by creating in 1931 the Association des anciens élèves médecins diplômés de l’École de Puériculture (Alumni Association of Graduate Physicians from the School of Puericulture). The association’s president was Benjamin Weill-Hallé, and its vice-president was the Spanish puericulturist Rafael García-Duarte Salcedo. The role of the association was to create a link between all puericulturists who studied at the school. A section of the Revue française de puériculture was reserved for publications by the alumni association. However, the association only communicated the names of a few members, the dates of its general assemblies and the (re)election of the president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary. It is therefore difficult to estimate the importance of this association, which appears to be a loose professional network. Secondly, The Revue française de puériculture was also a manifestation of the École de Puériculture. It was published between 1933 and 1946 (except between 1940 and 1945), with Weill-Hallé as editor. The aim of the journal was to promote puericulture and associated research by publishing lectures given at the school and original articles. In addition, Weill-Hallé asked colleagues, former students, and other physicians to send him short texts for publication in the section devoted to the “Puericulture Movement” in various countries[31]. The content of the Revue française de puériculture was read particularly by puericulturists and pediatricians in a number of European and Latin American countries[32]. Through its journal and alumni association, the École de Puériculture appeared to have shaped an ecosystem for the production and reproduction of a professional group with a common theoretical corpus. It seems, however, that, due to the association’s limited impact, this ecosystem did not lead to a greater transnational organization of puericulturists, who were nonetheless able to share a common framework through the circulation of the Revue française de puériculture.

Beyond the School: The Promotion of Puericulture Through the International Preventive Pediatrics Movement

The creation of the alumni association and the Revue française de puériculture took place at a time when puericulturists were trying to promote puericulture, as a term and a conception of medical care, in cross-national scientific circles concerned with preventive care. Following the Stockholm International Congress of Pediatrics in 1930, the International Association of Preventive Pediatrics (hereinafter referred to as IAPP) was founded under the auspices of the Save the Children International Union, a major actor in the international child protection movement, whose president at the time was the Uruguayan puericulturist Luis Morquio. Prominent puericulturists were members of the IAPP, including physicians who taught or studied at the École de Puériculture. At the IAPP annual conferences, some puericulturists presented papers advocating systematic consultations, including before marriage and procreation, and techniques for measuring the child’s individual characteristics, as means of improving populations by focusing on the regular monitoring and regulation of individuals’ hereditary and bodily characteristics. One of them, Giovanni De Toni, who studied at the École de Puériculture, published in 1939 an influential puericulture handbook entitled Puericultura: Pediatria preventiva individuale e sociale (Puericulture: Individual and Social Preventive Pediatrics), in which he adopted Weill-Hallé’s description of the role and scope of puericulture[33]. The book was translated into Spanish, and was used to train pediatricians and puericulturists in Spain and some Latin American countries, including Brazil[34], during and after the war. Although the members of the IAPP were not all puericulturists, the latter seemed to have succeeded in promoting puericulture as a medical science within the organization. Indeed, the Save the Children International Union organized, in collaboration with the IAPP, the two Balkan Congress for the Protection of Childhood held in 1936 and 1938. Their programs and discussions revolved in part around the teaching of puericulture, understood as preventive pediatrics, in medical and nursing schools[35].

Conclusion

Economic difficulties in France in the 1930s threatened the financial future of the École de Puériculture. After the outbreak of the Second World War, Weill-Hallé intensified his efforts to convince public authorities and medical circles to save the school’s finances. On October 15, 1940, he defended the results of the École de Puériculture with regard to the improvement of the population at the French Academy of Medicine, in order to justify his request for more subsidies. Three days later, the law on the status of Jews was published in the Journal Officiel, obliging Weill-Hallé to resign as director of the school. The complementary course for the 1939–1940 academic year was canceled and almost no physicians were trained during the war. After the war, the new director, Marcel Lelong, modified the physicians’ course, which became mainly attended by French students. Nonetheless, this course, taught every year between 1921 and 1939, partially republished and adapted in the Revue française de puériculture and puericulture books written by those who followed it, as well as the promotion of practices linked to the concept of the “normal development of the child”, contributed to the construction of a form of preventive pediatrics based on a conception of childhood that requires regular, and even constant, biomedical management.

Defining puericulture as the medical science of the child in the 1920s and 1930s can also be analyzed as a way for puericulturists to defend an approach to eugenics that they described as distinctive. In 1937, a congress of the Latin Eugenics Federation was held in Paris. Participants visited the École de Puériculture, perceived as the archetypal manifestation of what was conceived as a “Latin” form of eugenics, based on prevention and the attempt to manage both hereditary and environmental determinants of individual and collective health.[36] At this congress, “Latin” eugenics was implicitly described as opposed to a form of eugenics based on biological determinism supposedly promoted in Anglo-Saxon and Nordic countries.[37] Furthermore, through the lectures on child protection institutions, puericulture was described as a means to improve both the quality and the quantity of the population by means of social reform. This aspect appealed to physicians in the countries where puericulture was influential, especially in Latin America and Southern Europe, as it provided a rationale for the general improvement of people’s living conditions. In these countries, puericulture was an integral part of public health policies related to reproduction and childhood. Students from these countries trained at the École de Puériculture would therefore become active participants in the implementation of these policies.

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[1] J. Couturat, “L’École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris”, La Presse médicale, 1933, pp. 385‑386, p. 385. ‘telle qu’elle est, l’École de Puériculture […] n’a son équivalent dans aucun autre pays du monde. La ville de Paris peut en être fière.’

[2] Alfred Caron, “La puériculture et l’hygiène de la première enfance”, Le courrier médical, 12^e année, no 48, 1863, pp. 422‑424.

[3] Adolphe Pinard, “Note pour servir à l’histoire de la puériculture intra-utérine”, Bulletin de l’Académie de médecine, vol. XXXIV, no 3, 1895, pp. 593‑597.

[4] Adolphe Pinard, “De la puériculture”, Bulletin des Amis de l’Université, Lyon, Société des Amis de l’Université Lyonnaise, 1908, p. 6. ‘science ayant pour but la recherche des connaissances relatives à la reproduction, à la conservation et à l’amélioration de l’espèce humaine.’

[5] Andy Byford, “Introduction: Sciences of the Child in Transnational Perspective”, in Andy Byford, Science of the Child in Late Imperial and Early Soviet Russia, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020, pp. 1‑40.

[6] Catherine Rollet, “The Fight Against Infant Mortality in the Past: An International Comparison”, in Alain Bideau, Bertand Desjardins and Héctor Pérez Brignoli (eds.), Infant and Child Mortality in the Past, Oxford, Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press, 1997, pp. 38‑60.

[7] See for example: Marius Turda and Aaron Gillette, Latin Eugenics in Comparative Perspective, London, Bloomsbury Academic, Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2014; Nancy Stepan, The “Hour of Eugenics”: Race, Gender, and Nation in Latin America, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1991; Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani, “Eugenic Concerns, Population Policies and Puericulture in Interwar Greece”, The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, vol. 17, 2021, pp. 53‑90; Frauke Scheffler, Producing Citizens: Infant Health Programs in the Philippines, 1900-1930, Köln, Universität zu Köln, 2019; William H. Schneider, “Puericulture, and the Style of French Eugenics”, History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences, vol. 8, no 2, 1986, pp. 265‑277.

[8] Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel, “Introduction”, in Davide Rodogno, Bernhard Struck and Jakob Vogel (eds.), Shaping the Transnational Sphere: Experts, Networks and Issues from the 1840s to the 1930s, New York, Berghahn Books, 2015, pp. 1‑20, p. 5.

[9] See for example: Gülhan Balsoy, The Politics of Reproduction in Ottoman Society, 1838–1900, London, Pickering & Chatto, The Body, Gender and Culture, no 12, 2013, p. 13; Bonnie McElhinny, “Producing the A-1 Baby Puericulture Centers and the Birth of the Clinic in the U.S.-Occupied Philippines, 1906-1946”, Philippine Studies, vol. 57, no 2, 2009, pp. 219‑260, p. 224; Anne-Emanuelle Birn, “De Montevideo au Monde : l’Institut International Américain de Protection de l’Enfance et la circulation des politiques uruguayennes de la santé de l’enfance”, Monde(s), vol. 20, no 2, 2021, pp. 67‑97, p. 76-77.

[10] Anne-Emanuelle Birn, “The National-International Nexus in Public Health: Uruguay and the Circulation of Child Health and Welfare Policies, 1890-1940”, História, Ciências, Saúde-Manguinhos, vol. 13, no 3, 2006, pp. 33‑64, p. 57.

[11] On the history of the school, see: Marianne Cottet-Dumoulin Robinot, Une grande œuvre médico-sociale : l’École de Puériculture de la Faculté de médecine de Paris (1919–1970), Mémoire, Université René Descartes – Paris V, Paris, 1999.

[12] “Letter sent to Henri Roger”, Archives nationales, Écoles rattachées à la faculté de médecine, AJ/16/6559, January 1919. ‘dont le but serait d’améliorer et de stabiliser la propagande pour l’hygiène, prise dans le sens le plus vaste, en faveur de l’enfant en France.’

[13] Ana Paula Korndörfer, “The International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation and the training of health professionals in Brazil: the case of Olympio da Fonseca (1920s)”, Asclepio: Revista de historia de la medicina y de la ciencia, vol. 73, no 1, 2021; John Farley, To Cast out Disease: A History of the International Health Division of the Rockefeller Foundation (1913-1951), New York, Oxford University Press, 2004; Paul Weindling, “The Rockefeller Foundation and German Biomedical Sciences, 1920–40: From Educational Philanthropy to International Science Policy”, in Nicolaas A. Rupke (ed.), Science, Politics and the Public Good, London, Palgrave Macmillan UK, 1988, pp. 119‑140; Paul Weindling, “Philanthropy and World Health: The Rockefeller Foundation and the League of Nations Health Organisation”, Minerva, 1997, vol. 35, no 3, pp. 269‑281; Marcos Cueto, “Science under Adversity: Latin American Medical Research and American Private Philanthropy, 1920-1960”, Minerva, vol. 35, no 3, 1997, pp. 233‑245.

[14] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “La puériculture et son évolution”, Institut Pasteur, Fonds Benjamin Weill-Hallé, WEI 1, 1929. ‘projet encore bien confus.’

[15] Vassiliki Theodorou and Despina Karakatsani, “Eugenic Concerns, Population Policies and Puericulture in Interwar Greece”, The Historical Review/La Revue Historique, vol. 17, 2021, pp. 53‑90, pp. 68-69.

[16] Onoriu Coman, “Un înaintaş al puericulturii Româneşti : Profesorul Doctor Titu Gane (1883–1956)”, Pediatria, vol. XV, no 66, 1966, pp. 97‑100, p. 98.

[17] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “La Puériculture et son évolution”, La Presse médicale, vol. 52, no 14, 1929, pp. 217‑220, p. 218. ‘Protéger l’enfant dès avant la conception, assurer son développement intégral dans le sein maternel, éviter tous les incidents fâcheux lors de sa naissance, contrôler et favoriser sa croissance lorsqu’il aura vu le jour, éloigner les dangers inhérents au milieu extérieur et à la vie sociale, participer à son orientation au seuil de l’adolescence.’

[18] Université de Paris, École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris, Institut Pasteur, Fonds Benjamin Weill-Hallé, WEI 1, 1933.

[19] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “La puériculture et son évolution”, op. cit., p. 218.

[20] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “Rapport moral sur le fonctionnement de l’Association pour le développement de l’Hygiène maternelle et infantile pendant l’année 1937”, Procès-verbal de la 19^e Assemblée Générale du 7 mars 1938 de l’Association pour le développement de l’Hygiène maternelle et infantile, 1938, pp. 9‑20, p. 17.

[21] Gina Greene, “In the Garden of Puériculture: Cultivating the Ideal French Infant in Real and Imagined Landscapes of Care (1895–1935)”, Change Over Time, vol. 6, no 2, 2016, pp. 192‑214.

[22] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “L’École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris. Ses origines – Son programme”, Revue française de puériculture, vol. 1, 1933, pp. 21‑41, p. 38. ‘distinguer de la masse des sujets ceux qui sont pour les éducateurs une lourde charge et ne trouvent, dans la classe commune, aucune possibilité d’améliorer leur sort.’

[23] Ibid., p. 35. ‘une préface à l’orientation professionnelle ou à l’examen prénuptial.’

[24] Pierre Moulinier, “Le pari français de l’accueil des étudiants étrangers (1840-1940)”, Traverse, no 25, 2018, pp. 43‑56.

[25] Nicolas Manitakis, “Les migrations estudiantines en Europe, 1890-1930”, in René Leboutte (ed.), Migrations et migrants dans une perspective historique. Permanences et innovations, Bruxelles, P.I.E.-Peter Lang, 2000, pp. 243‑270.

[26] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “Rapport moral sur le fonctionnement de l’École de Puériculture”, Procès-verbal de la huitième Assemblée générale du 17 février 1927 de l’Association pour le développement de l’Hygiène maternelle et infantile, 1927, pp. 11‑29, p. 29. ‘l’amélioration des conditions de l’enfance bien au delà [sic] de[s] frontières [de la France].’

[27] Gaston Lapierre, Pour la Mère et l’Infirmière. Du soin des enfants, 2^nd ed., Montréal, Imprimerie Excelsior, 1938; Axente Iancu, Actualităţi în Puericultură şi Pediatrie, Cluj, Grafic-Record, 1932.

[28] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “L’École de Puériculture de la Faculté de Médecine de Paris”, op. cit., p. 28.

[29] Victor Karady, “La migration internationale d’étudiants en Europe, 1890-1940”, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, vol. 145, no 5, 2002, pp. 47‑60, p. 48.

[30] Nancy Stepan, op. cit.; Anne-Emmanuelle Birn, “De Montevideo au Monde”, op. cit., p. 76.

[31] Articles were published on the following countries: Argentina, Belgium, Italy, Sweden and the USSR.

[32] María José Billorou, La constitución de la puericultura como campo científico y como política pública en Buenos Aires 1930-1945, Tesis de Maestría, Santa Rosa, Universidad Nacional de La Pampa, 2007.

[33] Giovanni De Toni, “Introduzione allo studio della puericultura”, in Giovanni De Toni (ed.), Puericultura: Pediatria preventiva individuale e sociale, Edizioni Minerva Medica., Torino, 1939, p. XIII‑XXXII, p. XIII.

[34] Giovanni De Toni, “Quinta Giornata Brasiliana di Puericultura e di Pediatria e Terzo Congresso Panameicano e Sudamericano di Pediatria. Recife, 4-10 novembre 1951 e Montevideo, 2-8 diciembre 1951. Impressioni di cinque settimane di soggiorno nel Brasile e nell’Uruguay”, Minerva medica, vol. 43, 1952, pp. 1189‑1213, p. 1192.

[35] League of Nations, Balkan Congress for the Protection of Childhood, United Nations Geneva Archives, R4761/11C/16645/16645, LON Box R4761, 1936; League of Nations, 2nd Balkan Congress for the Protection of Childhood, United Nations Geneva Archives, R4761/11C/34050/16645, LON Box R4761, 1939.

[36] Benjamin Weill-Hallé, “Rapport moral sur le fonctionnement de l’Association pour le développement de l’Hygiène maternelle et infantile pendant l’année 1937”, op. cit., p. 12.

[37] Fédération internationale latine des sociétés d’eugénique, Premier Congrès Latin d’Eugénique, Paris, Masson & Cie, 1937.