Dr. Emmett Holt. (Wikipedia) Born: March 4, 1855
Died: January 14, 1924
Married: Linda Mairs
Children: Mrs. Henry Lowry, Horace Holt, L. Emmett Holt, Jr.
Dr. Luther Emmett Holt was a New York City pediatrician who headed Babies Hospital. He developed an early infant formula in an effort to make cows' milk more like breast milk. He was the pediatrician to the family of John D. Rockefeller Jr. and other wealthy New Yorkers. He published The Care and Feeding of Children in 1894, which became a perennial best seller that went through 12 editions and 75 printings; it advocated a strict regimen of feeding, warned against kissing or cuddling infants, and urged toilet training by four months or age.
Born near Rochester, New York, Holt graduated from the University of Rochester in 1875. He went to medical school in the University at Buffalo and then the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, earning his M.D. in 1880. He pioneered the science of pediatrics, and became the head physician at New York's Babies Hospital in 1888. Under his leadership it became the leading pediatric hospital of its time.
One of Holt's most notable accomplishments is the introduction of milk certification in New York City. Using a grant he acquired through his connection with the Rockefeller Institute, Holt surveyed the quality of milk in the tenement districts and subsequently proved that a large proportion of infant fatalities were due to excessively high bacterial counts. He was instrumental in the creation of milk commissions and advisory boards for the city's Department of Health.
Holt had a camp on Panther Point in Upper Saranac Lake.
Sources:
- Wikipedia: L. Emmett Holt
- New York Times, June 17, 2003
New York Times, January 15, 1924
DR. L. EMMETT HOLT DIES AT PEKING POST
Rockefeller Foundation Authority on Children's Diseases Was Stricken With Heart Attack.
(PEKING, Jan. 15. (Associated Press), —Dr. Luther Emmett Holt, a professor in the Rockefeller Institute, is dead here of heart failure.
The serious illness of Dr. Holt, a New York physician, was announced in a cable received yesterday by the China Medical Board of the Rockefeller Foundation.
Dr. Holt, one of the ranking men in pediatrics, sailed for China Aug. 23 under appointment for the Fall term as Special Lecturer at the Union Medical College, Peking, which is maintained by the Rockefeller Foundation. He was accompanied by Mrs. Holt and Miss Anne Whitney Associate Director of the Health Education Division of the American Child Health Association.
The party had planned to sail from Shanghai for home by way of the Suez Canal tomorrow.
Dr. Holt was 55 years old. His residence in this city was 155 West Fifty-eighth Street. Since 1901 he had been Clinical Professor of Children's Diseases at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was Physician In Chief at the Babies' Hospital. He was Secretary and a Director of the Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research.
New York Times, July 26, 1903
CAMP LIFE AT SARANAC INN.
Special to The New York Times.
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Dr. and Mrs. Emmett Holt of New York, who are now in Europe, are expected at their Panther Point camp about Aug. 1.
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