Growing-up in Newcastle- upon-Tyne

There can be few individuals concerned with the health and welfare of children who to-day are unaware of the Tyneside Thousand Family Survey, as the investigation has come to be known The primary purpose of this clinical and epidemi- ological study, started in 1947 and still continuing, was to reveal the pattern and extent of disease in Newcastle children, particularly the origins and associations of ill-health and abnormality in the young.Hitherto, concepts of child health, upon which undergraduate teaching and preventive pediatrics must be based, have stemmed largely from hospital experience.The first report which appeared six years ago dealt with the first year of life and gave the facts of development and disease concerning a representative sample of the city's infants; this book was widely acclaimed.The second volume just published dealing with the same survey-group and covering now the pre- school period is an equally outstanding medical and social document which deserves the attention of all those who in different ways care for children, whether doctors or not.The project has throughout remained a joint undertaking shared between the Nuffield Depart- ment of Child Health, King's College, and the City Health Department, Newcastle.Everyone concerned in this fruitful partnership must be congratulated.The investigation will continue until 1962 by which time the children will have reached school-leaving age.All who have followed this fascinating longitudinal study will now eagerly look forward to reading the third and final volume.