Medicine: Battered-Child Syndrome

To many doctors, the incident is becoming distressingly familiar. A child, usually under three, is brought to the office with multiple fractures—often including a fractured skull. The parents express appropriate concern, report that the baby fell out of bed, or tumbled down the stairs, or was injured by a playmate. But X rays and experience lead the doctor to a different conclusion: the child has been beaten by his parents. He is suffering from what last week's A.M.A. Journal calls "the battered-child syndrome."

Psychopathic Personalities. There is no indication that the ancient ritual of child beating has been mitigated by modern theories...