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Waldo Emerson Nelson, 98, Author of Pediatric Text

By Lawrence K. Altman The News York Times, March 9, 1997

Dr. Waldo E. Nelson, the author of the leading textbook of pediatrics for 40 years, died on March 2 at his home in Gladwyne, Pa. He was 98.

A distinguished medical educator, Dr. Nelson was the chairman of the department of pediatrics at Temple University and the medical director of St. Christopher's Hospital, both in Philadelphia. Many doctors trained by Dr. Nelson are now leaders in pediatrics. Dr. Nelson was also the editor of The Journal of Pediatrics from 1959 through 1978.

However, Dr. Nelson was even better known to generations of doctors whom he did not train directly through the classic textbook he wrote, now known as the Nelson Textbook of Pediatrics.

The book was a family affair. Dr. Nelson would call out items from each page as his wife and three children wrote them down on index cards. The children were not eager to help, but Dr. Nelson insisted that it was a contribution to their education. In humorous retribution, his daughter Ann introduced a line in the index. Under birds, for the, she listed the entire book, pages 1-1413.

Despite pleas from the publisher to keep the entry, the line stood for only one edition, the seventh published in 1959. Dr. Nelson did not think it was appropriate to keep it, said the current editor of the book, Dr. Richard E. Behrman, a son-in-law of Dr. Nelson. Dr. Behrman had courted Ann while the textbook was being written. Before they married, Dr. Berhman said, Ann made him promise never to ask her to help him write a textbook. Waldo Emerson Nelson was born in McClure, Ohio, in 1898. His father was a pharmacist who ran a drug and general store. After graduating from Wittenberg College in Ohio, Dr. Nelson had to defer plans to enter The Wharton School of Finance because of financial difficulties. He worked as a mail clerk at Willys-Overland and as a salesman, peddling peaches, insurance, magazines and car fenders.

But the memory of a baby sister who died in infancy led Bill Nelson, as he was known, to turn to medicine. Aided by an executive of Willys-Overland, Dr. Nelson obtained his medical degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1926. He was an intern at Cincinnati General Hospital and went on to complete a residency at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in 1929 and then joined the hospital's medical staff.

At that time, insulin was slowly being introduced into medical practice as the first effective treatment for diabetes, and Dr. Nelson took an interest in children with the ailment. He said one of his proudest accomplishments was creating a summer camp for diabetic children.

Dr. Nelson moved to Temple University in 1940. The next year, he took over the full editorship of a pediatrics textbook that he had been helping to edit.

In addition to Ann Behrman of Belvedere, Calif., Dr. Nelson is survived by another daughter, Jane N. Beatty, of Villanova, Pa.; a son, William H. Nelson of Swarthmore, Pa.; eight grandchildren, and 15 great-grandchildren. Dr. Nelson's wife, Marge, died in 1982.

http://www.nytimes.com/1997/03/09/us/waldo-nelson-98-author-of-pediatric-text.html