EVIDENCES OF CHILDREN'S INFLAMMATORY DISEASES, TRAUMA AND TUMOURS FROM THE 13th TO THE 19th CENTURIES IN THE CZECH LANDS.

The presented study is a part of a complex study focused on monitoring the origin and development of paediatric care in Moravia, one of the countries of the former Austrian monarchy. It observes the state of health and the causes of paediatric mortality from the 13th to the 19th centuries, on the basis of the study of available literary sources within the context of palaeopathological analyses of children's skeletal remains. The work also takes into account the social conditions, as changes in the Moravian healthcare sector occurred in the period under review in connection with the Theresian and Josephine reforms. Due to the lack of qualified medical staff, the development of Obstetrics and Pediatrics was much slower than other fields of medicine. Sick children were reliant only on the assistance of private doctors, whose care was unavailable to poor families. In the first public health facilities, only children older than 10 years of age were hospitalised with adults. Younger children were given institutional care only from 1846, after the establishment of the Children's Hospital of St. Cyril and Methodius in Brno. In this part of the study, attention was focused on the occurrence of inflammatory diseases, trauma and tumours. According to literary sources, Moravian children were particularly afflicted with infectious diseases. These included diphtheria, black cough, sinusitis, bacterial inflammation of the lungs of various origins, dysentery, salmonellosis, icterus and other diseases. The palaeopathological study demonstrates the high incidence of tuberculous meningitis and congenital syphilis. Traumatic changes were recorded on bones in only a few cases. Unlike written data, the osteology study did not detect any malignant tumours in the examined children. The present communication therefore supplements information on the history and epidemiology of children's infectious diseases in Central Europe during the Modern Age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]