What greater investment can a nation make than in the health of its children? Yet tragically, until the twentieth century nearly half of all children in the United States died before reaching adolescence.

The history of children's health in America - its evalutian from the rudimentary ministrations of colonial times to the comprehensive care afforded children today - is a fascinating story, not just of medical advances but of society's changing perspectives and emphases, and of the roles religion, philosophy, and science have played in children's health care.

"To understand the history of children's health in America, we must move beyond political campaigns, industrialization, and even the startling science of the physician and instead emphasize the home and the hearth as much more dramatic determinants of the health of American children," asserts Charles R. King, M.D., in this inaugural volume in Twayne's History of American Childhood Series. Arranged chronologically, the book provides an absorbing survey of children's health from colonial times to the present - from the influence of Rousseau to the focus on motherhood, from the rise of "pediatrists" to the growth of the "child saving" movement, and from the 1921 legislation heralding the government's first major involvement in children's health to the tremendous achievements of modern pediatric science and the growing recognition that children's health encompasses sociocultural as well as medical issues.