I walked out in the garden yesterday, when there was a short window of sunshine on a day, the rain soaked the earth and left paddles of water in the garden.
The three Rambutan trees gave three different stories through their fruits. One tree had fruits ready to pluck. Another one had yellow fruits and would need a week or more to ripen. The third tree had fruits in different stages of their formation !
Three trees telling three different history of their flowering and fruit bearing.
I was not for any formal thinking during this walk. But a thought kept calling my attention.
It was the story of Dr Willam Cutting, a British Paediatrician who spent 12 years in Andhra Pradesh at CSI Campbell hospital, Jammalamadugu, to make a developmental chart to monitor the growth by taking the anthropometric measurements of children. With this background he teamed up with Prof David Morley at the Institute of Child Health, London and evolved the growth monitoring chart in the late nineteen sixties which became landmark discovery in knowing the growth velocity of under five children, by measuring the weight, height, head circumference, mid-arm circumference and skin fold thickness of under five children.
Dr Cutting got persuaded to follow this track as he observed during his work in Andra Pradesh, that early childhood malnutrition led to stunting of growth and under performance of children scholastically in the school years.
It was this dream of focussing on the life of a child that led him to study the critical influence of nutrition in child development. He from early days viewed the speciality of Paediatrics to be centred in Child life and not just diseases alone.
It is interesting the he wrote four books for senior citizens after his retirement: Dementia a positive response, Face the future a series of - three books, on 'Seniors can inspire', 'Challenges, Joy and Faith for seniors', and 'Seniors make the most of the health you have'.
I stay amazed how a calling he lived focussing on life centred view of practice of Paediatrics, led him to think of the senior citizens to add value to their living!
His was a mission of Knowing the child that led him to travel with children till they became senior citizens.
I used to receive greetings from him regularly until recently. It was he who facilitated ASHIRVAD a charitable trust, which established a Child Development Centre at Chennai in 1983 to enter into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Christian Medical College, Vellore in 1997 to start the first Developmental Paediatrics department in India. That highlights how aware he was of the need of such a speciality in India, to promote the wellness of neuro-developmentally challenged children. He thought of their life and enlarged our perspectives for adding health to their life.
Every family has children at various stages of their development. It is by turning to a life centred view of them we would lead them into fullness of life and opportunities.
Paediatricians are therefore not just specialists in diseases of children, but collaborators with parents to be formators of child life!
M.C.Mathew (text and photo)
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