George Rosen

Who was George Rosen?

George Rosen, M.D. was an American physician, public health administrator, journal editor, and medical historian. His major interests were in the relationship of social, economic and cultural factors upon health.

Rosen was born in New York City to immigrant parents from Eastern Europe. He was educated in local public schools and graduated from the City College of New York in 1930. Unable to obtain admission to a medical school because of quotas for Jewish students, he entered the University of Berlin Medical School in Germany, and received his medical degree in 1935 after completing a medical thesis. In Berlin, Rosen met the medical historian Henry E. Sigerist from The Johns Hopkins University Medical School, who suggested to Rosen that he write his thesis on William Beaumont who had studied and published on gastric physiology. His friendship with Sigerist became lifelong.

While in medical school Rosen met Beate Caspari and married her in 1933. She later assisted Rosen in his historical writings.

Upon his return to New York City, Rosen interned at the Beth-El Hospital in Brooklyn for two years and soon began submitting articles to Sigerist’s Bulletin of the History of Medicine.