Origins of medical specialization

Historical Significance: This set of papers includes sections on the origins and historical development of ophthalmology in several of the articles (eg 1130-1132, 1145-1151). George Rosen MD MA PhD (1910 - 1977) was born and schooled in Brooklyn NY but studied medicine in Berlin at the Kaiser Wilhelm University because as a jew he was excluded from medical school in the USA. He graduated in 1935 and returned to New York in that year to escape the rise of Nazism. He did his PhD in Sociology at Columbia University, 1944, and his MA in Public Health, also at Columbia University, 1947. His career consisted of two specialties: public health and preventive medicine and the history of medicine. Wearing both hats, he obtained public recognition in both fields, becoming professor of Public Health Education at Columbia University, and at Yale University, professor of the History of Medicine and professor of Epidemiology and Public Health. In 1946, he was founder, with John Fulton, of The Journal of The History of Medicine and Allied Sciences; throughout the remainder of his life he served as editor or as an editorial board member until his death in 1977. Rosen's publications are numerous: more than 200 articles and nine books and translations of numerous medical--historical texts and medical texts.