The `Battered Child' Revisited

The impact of the article "The Battered-Child Syndrome" by Drs Henry Kempe, Frederic Silverman, Brandt Steele, William Droegemueller, and Henry Silver, which appeared inThe Journalon July 7, 19621—and the speed with which this impact was felt throughout the land —were truly astonishing. Within four years of the publication of this LANDMARK ARTICLE, all but one state had adopted child abuse reporting statutes.2 Others had suspected the existence of child abuse, and a few previous articles on this subject had been published in the medical literature. Two things made this article different. First, the title. How can a nation ignore an entity called "the battered-child syndrome"? Second, the paper was submitted to the widely circulatedJournal of the American Medical Associationso that the majority of practicing physicians read about child abuse and the press quickly took note. This perspective will cover four topics: (1) What