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The new specialty of paediatrics focused its attention in three directions: 1)
the study of all anthropometric measures both in clinics and dispensaries and in
schools where new school hygiene was becoming institutionalized; 2) The study of
material and energy metabolism of the first stages of life. The development of
this basic knowledge provided the access in for the new procedures to provide a
scientific base to infant nutrition. The “caloric method” was based on the
discovery of the quantity of daily calorie in-take per kilogram of weight
necessary to achieve suitable growth, and 3) the development of a set of
techniques for the diagnosis and treatment of infant diseases.
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