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‘The bones tell a story the child is too young or too frightened to tell’ : the battered child syndrome in post-war Britain and America
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Crane, Jennifer (2015) ‘The bones tell a story the child is too young or too frightened to tell’ : the battered child syndrome in post-war Britain and America. Social History of Medicine, 28 (4). pp. 767-788. doi:10.1093/shm/hkv040
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv040
Abstract
This article traces the emergence of child abuse as a medical concern in post-war Britain and America. In the early 1960s American paediatricians and radiologists defined the ‘battered child syndrome’ to characterise infants subjected to serious physical abuse. In the British context, paediatricians and radiologists, but also dermatologists and ophthalmologists, drew upon this work and sought to identify clear diagnostic signs of child maltreatment. For a time, the x-ray seemed to provide a reliable and objective visualisation of child maltreatment. By 1970, however, medical professionals began to invite social workers and policy makers to aid them in the diagnosis and management of child abuse. Discourse around the ‘battered child syndrome’, specifically, faded away, whilst concerns around child abuse grew. The battered child syndrome was a brief phenomenon of the 1960s, examination of which can inform the histories of medical authority, radiology and secrecy and privacy in the post-war period.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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| Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HV Social pathology. Social and public welfare | ||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Arts > History | ||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Battered child syndrome -- History -- United States, Battered child syndrome -- History -- Great Britain, Child abuse -- History -- United States, Child abuse -- History -- Great Britain | ||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Social History of Medicine | ||||||||
| Publisher: | Oxford University Press | ||||||||
| ISSN: | 0951-631X | ||||||||
| Official Date: | 1 November 2015 | ||||||||
| Dates: |
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| Date of first compliant deposit: | 28 September 2018 | ||||||||
| Volume: | 28 | ||||||||
| Number: | 4 | ||||||||
| Page Range: | pp. 767-788 | ||||||||
| DOI: | 10.1093/shm/hkv040 | ||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access |
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