A TRIBUTE TO CAPUTE,ARNOLD,J., MD, MPH

When Arnold Capute goes through the spastic motions of a child with cerebral palsy (CP), an initial impression is that he is dramatizing his comments with rather callous mimicry. But no, he is not imitating a CP child. For the moment, as his head snaps backward and his arms flex uncontrollably, he is a CP child, just as later in discussing the primitive reflexes of infants (of which the fencing position is most common), he momentarily becomes a newborn infant. Dr. Capute is a man of unabashed empathy and enthusiasm and he is wholly convinced that medical therapy can do much more than previously to overcome developmental disabilities in children. So keen and articulate is Dr. Capute in elaborating on his subject matter that the Hopkins pediatric house staff chose him to receive the Alexander Schaffer Award this past June for excellence in clinical teaching. © 1994, Sage Publications. All rights reserved.