Herbert Rackow and Ernest Salanitre: the emergence of pediatric anesthesia as a specialty in the United States.

Herbert Rackow and Ernest Salanitre were pediatric anesthesiologists at Babies Hospital at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York whose work spanned three decades beginning in the early 1950s. Their pioneering research included studies of the uptake and elimination of inhalational anesthetics and of the risk of cardiac arrest in infants and children. They were actively involved in the development of pediatric anesthesia as a specialty, and their efforts contributed to inter-disciplinary collaboration and to the formation of the Section on Anesthesiology of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Their 1969 review article, 'Modern Concepts in Pediatric Anesthesiology', provides a fascinating view of pediatric anesthesia 50 years ago. In 1990, they were jointly awarded the Robert M. Smith award by the Section on Anesthesiology of the American Academy of Pediatrics.