Arvo Ylppö

Who was Arvo Ylppö?

Arvo Henrik Ylppö was a Finnish pediatrician who significantly decreased Finnish infant mortality during the 20th century. He is credited as the father of Finland's public child welfare clinic system, and held the title of archiater for forty years.

Ylppö was born in 1887 in Akaa, Finland into a farming family. He was apparently born premature and remained small in stature through his life. He entered the University of Helsinki in 1906 and decided to specialize in pediatric medicine. In 1912 he moved to the Imperial Children's Hospital in Berlin, Germany, where he wrote his thesis about infants' bilirubin metabolism in 1913. It was printed in Germany. He graduated as medical doctor in March 1914 in Helsinki.

While in Germany, Ylppö concentrated on research about children's pathological anatomy and attracted international recognition. In his research, he observed that deaths of prematurely born infants are usually due to treatable conditions rather than simple underdevelopment, which motivated advancement of treatment of and science related to prematurely born infants.

When he returned to Finland, in 1920, he became a teacher in Helsinki University Hospital. In 1925 his post became the post for professor of pediatry.