William Ladd before the Halifax explosion

Legend holds that treating the hundreds of children injured in the Halifax explosion of December 6, 1917, compelled Dr. William E. Ladd (1880-1967) to dedicate his career to the surgical care of infants and children. However, he had made the commitment to be a pediatric surgeon several years before when he joined the voluntary staff of the Children's Hospital of Boston in 1910. In the years before Halifax, he was among the vanguard of American surgeons who brought the mortality of intussusception to 45% from 90%, and of pyloric stenosis to 15% from 60%. Among his early innovations was the contrast enema for intussusception for diagnosis and therapy. Shortly after the explosion, Dr. Ladd led a medical relief effort of 100 doctors, nurses, and orderlies from Boston. With supplies enough for a 500-bed hospital, they battled through a blizzard, downed telegraph lines, and blocked railways to reach the strickened city on December 9. The enormity of the Halifax tragedy and the dedication of Dr. Ladd and his team led to the creation myth of the birth of pediatric surgery. The record was set straight by Dr. Ladd himself in a handwritten letter to a pediatric surgeon who had asked about when he dedicated himself to the field. “The Children's was [my] very first and most permanent love,” Ladd wrote. “As soon as it became feasible after the first World War, I devoted myself exclusively to pediatric surgery and have never regretted it.”