Introduction: Early publications in pediatric urology set the stage for the development of the first certified subspecialty in urology. Our objective was to review the history behind these publications as well as their content. Methods: We review and compare Disease of the Urinary Tract in Children (1930) by Edwin Beer and Abraham Hyman to Pediatric Urology (1937) by Meredith Campbell. We also reviewed the authors of the text and the corpus of knowledge in the field of pediatric urology at that time. Results: Beer and Hyman’s text reviews the pediatric urology experience at Mount Sinai Hospital. In the preface they write "the whole subject dealt with in these pages is… still in the stage of development." Beer, a pioneer in endoscopic technology, describes his invention of the first pediatric cystoscope in the text. The authors describe the style of their text as "each chapter is more or less a separate essay in which the material is not arranged as in the ordinary textbook." The text is comprised of 14 chapters, with "illustrative cases" at the end of nine of the chapters to help the reader recognize how the pediatric patient should be approached differently from the adult patient. Campbell’s text is 2 volumes and is composed of 12 chapters. The end of each chapter has an extensive bibliography citing other studies in the literature that were used in the chapter. In the preface, Dr. Campbell writes, “Pediatric urology is still in its diaper age and as yet comparatively few physicians are experienced in it.” He writes “much of its rapidly increasing literature is in the nature of case reports rather than conclusions drawn from the studies of case series.” Dr. Campbell aims to correct this in his text as he presents data of relatively large case series from his practice. He also includes an extensive necroscopy experience, writing “pathology is the true basis of medicine and for this volume the uropathology as recorded in 26,480 autopsies.” His text chapters are supplemented with organized outlines to help classify disease processes, illustrations used to help teach the etiology of various conditions and anatomic drawings. The strength of Campbell’s text is its systematic approach to and organization of various pediatric disease processes. His last chapter on “Urosurgery” is a mini-surgical atlas. Conclusions: Beer and Hyman’s text was a collection of essays that illustrated the dearth of knowledge in the field of pediatric urology at the time. Campbell’s text was the first comprehensive pediatric urology textbook as it systematically organized the corpus of knowledge of the time and presented operative and clinical case series with the aim to teach pediatric urology. SOURCE OF Funding: None
