[Concern for children in family management texts]

Hausväterliteratur designates works aimed at landlords and their wives in order to help them in the management of their estate. Among a wide-ranged list of topics tackled in these sizeable volumes, child welfare seldom fails to appear, though generally rather briefly. We consider in this paper a number of German works, most of them dating from the 17th century, though beginning with Johann Coler (1593) and winding up with Johann Joachim Becher (1714). These works include some advice on how to diagnose and manage the most common ailments, as well as some basic educational principles. A brief "pediatric" pharmacopoeia is often added. Although this review concerns only works in German, we have added references to a document taken from English literature, the diary of the clergyman and landlord Ralph Josselin. Dating from the same period (1643-1683), this document shows us how a landlord and his wife actually treated their sick children, thus shifting from theory to practice. "Hausväterliteratur" can be considered as an early stage of what was later termed "Domestic Medicine".