Medieval Medicine + Note Pages

James Joseph Walsh (1865–1942) was an American physician and author. Walsh was born in New York City. He graduated from Fordham College in 1884 (PhD, 1892) and from the University of Pennsylvania (MD) in 1895. After postgraduate work in Paris, Vienna and Berlin he settled in New York. Walsh was for many years Dean and Professor of nervous diseases and of the history of medicine at Fordham University school of medicine. Excerpt To understand the story of Medieval Medicine, the reader must recall briefly the course of Roman history. Rome, founded some eight centuries before Christ, was at first the home of a group of adventurers who, in the absence of women enough to supply wives for their warriors, went out and captured the maidens of a neighbouring Sabine town. The feud which broke out as a result was brought to an end by the women now become the wives of the Romans, and an alliance was made. Gradually Rome conquered the neighbouring cities, but was ever so much more interested in war and conquest than in the higher life. The Etruscan cities, which came under her domination, now reveal in their ruins art objects of exquisite beauty and the remains of a people of high artistic culture. When Rome conquered Carthage, Carthage was probably the most magnificent city in the world, and Rome was a very commonplace collection of houses. Culture did not come to Rome until after her conquest of Greece, when “captive Greece led her captor captive.”