Pediatric cardiology: A brief historical perspective

Abstract

Pediatric cardiology's past covers 50 centuries. Most if its accomplishments have occurred in the last 50 years. In a limited sense, it is a story of four questions about the heart: How is it formed? How is it malformed? How can it be studied? How can it be fixed? Although not all the answers have been provided, we have come close to doing so in the first three-quarters of the 20th century, and will doubtless get even closer in the final quarter. For pediatric cardiologists and their surgeon colleagues will persist until Puck's prayer is answered: And the blots of Nature's hand Shall not in their issue stand. © 1979 Springer-Verlag New York Inc.