Simon Wile; Pediatrician Studied Emotional Illness

Simon Wile, a pediatrician who made house calls for 52 years before retiring, has died in his Beverly Hills home.

Wile, who was 88 when he died Sunday night, was president emeritus of Reiss-Davis Child Study Center.

He had viewed with great dismay the rapid increase in emotional disturbances among his patients. He devoted much of his career to studying the emotional aspects of physical illnesses suffered by the thousands of children he had cared for.

Fifty percent of inmates in mental institutions were under 21, he told an interviewer on the eve of his 1979 retirement. One of seven children had a significant mental or emotional disorder, he said.

His patients ranged from the sons and daughters of farmers outside Chicago, where he began his practice in 1927 after earning his medical degree from Vanderbilt University, to the children of Hollywood stars, whom he visited in their Beverly Hills mansions after moving to Los Angeles in 1953.

He began an affiliation with Reiss-Davis that extended past his retirement, and was instrumental in affiliating the children’s center with the Vista del Mar Child Care Service, increasing the caliber of psychiatric help.

In 1987, he helped sponsor the UCLA Center for Preventive Psychiatry in Westwood Village.

He also served six years on the board of the Los Angeles County Children’s Museum, where he formed a health education exhibit. In 1980, Reiss-Davis, where he served as president from 1973 to 1976, dedicated the Simon A. Wile wing.

He was also honored by the Blind Children’s Center and the Maple Center.

Survivors include his wife, Frances, and daughter, Patricia, who teaches children with learning disabilities.