PAEDIATRICS FROM
AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
Brines J, Fons J, Martinez-Costa C, Nunez F
Department of Paediatrics, Obstetrics and
Gynaecology, Valencia, Spain
Introduction. The basic problems of paediatrics are so
vast that they cannot be wholly approached from the perspective of a single
current scientific discipline. Synthesis has become more necessary as
studies on child are more specialised.
General approaches to the children diseases. The present scientific
explanation of children’s diseases was mainly developed in the past from
three different views based on the lesion, the dysfunction or the etiology.
These views were expanded later by microscopic and molecular analysis but
they failed to explain the diversity of health state and disease
expression. Genetics and biochemistry have pursued these unitary
perspectives in the XX century. Genetics has tried to give the deepest
insight into an all-embracing view of life. But emphasising genetics we
overlook that most of the genetic information fails to express as a living
organism by the agency of the environment and by ignoring the environment,
any explanation of the living world remains in a vacuum. Biochemistry, on
the other hand, works mainly at molecular level, insufficient to explain
all the complexity of living beings.
Evolution as a general
organisation of biological thought and its applications to paediatrics. Up to now we have adequate knowledge of any development
stage of the healthy and ill child. We know the "what" and the
"how", but we lack the "why" the child is as he is, the
reason for their chemical composition, structure, shape, body and mental
function. Evolutionary allows us to understand the basis of psychological
and social behaviour, to relate the peculiarities of children and their
role in the human species, to link them with other living beings.There are
few paediatric subjects on which evolutionary scope cannot be applied. They
include life cycle, development, nutrition, infectious diseases, obesity,
parent-offspring conflicts, psychosocial troubles and so on.