Brandt Steele, 97, Coined ‘Battered Child’
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Psychiatrist Brandt F. Steele, who coauthored a groundbreaking paper on child abuse and helped coin the phrase “battered child,” died Jan. 19 in Denver. He was 97.
Steele wrote “The Battered Child Syndrome” in 1962, detailing for the first time the symptoms of parental abuse of children. Editors of the Journal of the American Medical Association called the paper one of the 50 most important medical contributions of the 20th century.
Steele and co-author C. Henry Kempe documented more than 300 cases of parental abuse of children and detailed the medical, legal, and emotional needs of the victims. They also were the first to document that abusers themselves often were victims of abuse and neglect as children.
Steele grew up in Indiana, attended Indiana University, and studied under Alfred Kinsey. After serving in World War II, he became a lecturer in psychiatry at the University of Philadelphia. He later opened a psychiatric practice in Denver and served on the faculty of the University of Colorado Medical School.
