Schiff' first described a series of children with Crohn's disease in New York in 1945. He took care to exclude other diseases of the gastrointestinal tract with which it might clinically have been mistaken; these included infections by enteropathogenic bacteria and infestations with giardia and amoebae, ulcerative colitis, lymphosarcoma and coeliac disease. Thus, he established Crohn's disease as a childhood illness. He reported all the clinical features that had been described in adults -abdominal pain, weight loss, loss of appetite and diarrhoea. In 1954 the experience of Crohn's disease at the Mayo Clinic was reported; 85 out of 600 cases were under 16 years. Reports soon followed that highlighted some of the problems particularly associated with Crohn's disease in children. Moseley, reviewing 28 cases, pointed out the delay in diagnosis that the lack of awareness of Crohn's disease in this age group had brought. Over half were still undiagnosed a year or more after symptoms had started. Silverman stressed the effect of Crohn's disease on linear growth and maintained that children may present first to the paediatrician with short stature. A high incidence of extra-intestinal manifestations was also reported. O'Donoghue and Dawson' in 1977 echoed these points in the first detailed study of children with Crohn's disease in the United Kingdom and emphasized again the frequent delay in diagnosis at that time.