ABT, ISAAC ARTHUR

ABT, ISAAC ARTHUR (1867–1955), U.S. pediatrician. Abt, who was born in Wilmington, Illinois, served as professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University (1897–1902), Rush Medical College (1902–08), and again at Northwestern from 1908. He was the first president of the American Academy of Pediatrics (1931). Abt wrote prolifically on clinical, social, and experimental subjects in the field of pediatrics and wrote an encyclopedic eight-volume work Pediatrics (1923–36). The section dealing with nutritional disturbances in infancy is of particular significance. He was the first American pediatrician to use protein milk in the treatment of diarrhea in infants. His work The Baby's Food was published in 1917. -BIBLIOGRAPHY: S.R. Kagan, Jewish Contributions to Medicine in America (1939), 147–50; idem, Jewish Medicine (1952), 364; Journal of the American Medical Association, 159 (1955), 1785; Parmelee, in: B.S. Veeder (ed.), Pediatric Profiles (1957), 109–16. (Suessmann Muntner)