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Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context
Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was defined in 1969 and incorporated into the International Classification of Diseases a decade later. To advocates of SIDS as a diagnosis, medical interest in sudden infant death was long overdue. However, the definition of SIDS lacked positive diagnostic criteri...
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2015
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Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217070 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv003 |
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author | Ferguson, Angus H. |
author_facet | Ferguson, Angus H. |
author_sort | Ferguson, Angus H. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was defined in 1969 and incorporated into the International Classification of Diseases a decade later. To advocates of SIDS as a diagnosis, medical interest in sudden infant death was long overdue. However, the definition of SIDS lacked positive diagnostic criteria, provoking some to view it as a ‘diagnostic dustbin’ for the disposal of problematic cases where cause of death was unclear. This paper examines the development of medical interest in sudden infant death in Britain during the middle decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the importance of recognising the historicity of SIDS as a diagnosis facilitated by changes in law and medicine over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It suggests that SIDS provides a definitive case study of the medicalisation of life and death, and a unique example of an officially recognised disease that had no symptoms, signs, pathology or patients. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-4513887 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2015 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-45138872015-07-27 Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context Ferguson, Angus H. Soc Hist Med Original Articles Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) was defined in 1969 and incorporated into the International Classification of Diseases a decade later. To advocates of SIDS as a diagnosis, medical interest in sudden infant death was long overdue. However, the definition of SIDS lacked positive diagnostic criteria, provoking some to view it as a ‘diagnostic dustbin’ for the disposal of problematic cases where cause of death was unclear. This paper examines the development of medical interest in sudden infant death in Britain during the middle decades of the twentieth century. It highlights the importance of recognising the historicity of SIDS as a diagnosis facilitated by changes in law and medicine over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It suggests that SIDS provides a definitive case study of the medicalisation of life and death, and a unique example of an officially recognised disease that had no symptoms, signs, pathology or patients. Oxford University Press 2015-08 2015-03-02 /pmc/articles/PMC4513887/ /pubmed/26217070 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv003 Text en © The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for the Social History of Medicine. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Original Articles Ferguson, Angus H. Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title | Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title_full | Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title_fullStr | Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title_full_unstemmed | Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title_short | Ignored Disease or Diagnostic Dustbin? Sudden Infant Death Syndrome in the British Context |
title_sort | ignored disease or diagnostic dustbin? sudden infant death syndrome in the british context |
topic | Original Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513887/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26217070 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/shm/hkv003 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT fergusonangush ignoreddiseaseordiagnosticdustbinsuddeninfantdeathsyndromeinthebritishcontext |