George Rosen as I knew him.

T was a gray Baltimore morning in April 1942 when I first met George Rosen in the Johns Hopkins Institute. We 'clicked' immediately. Being both devotees of medical history we talked for hours almost exclusively about our adored subject; strangely enough neither about our careers (as it behooves colleagues) nor about world politics, though at that moment it breathed heavily down all our necks. I was very much impressed at this first encounter by George's high intelligence and extraordinary erudition. I was no less impressed by his unassuming and good-tempered ways, which, by the way, he never changed when he rose socially. As intelligence and reading are reflected in his work, which will be discussed by others, I will not expatiate here on this point. Modesty and friendliness survive mostly in personal memories. That is the reason why I have accepted to report mine. I have respected and liked George more than most of my colleagues, but I could not say for which of the four virtues in particular that one finds so rarely combined, I did it. In my experience George Rosen displayed enormous quantities of equanimity. In spite of the incredible burden of work he always carried, he never seemed rushed, nervous, or impatient. He very rarely was angry. This does not mean though that he was acritical, as is evidenced by some of his book reviews. George's way was certainly never easy, beginning with the necessity of studying in Germany. But he had no talent to be bitter about past difficulties, and he had a fine sense of humor to neutralize bad experiences. In these early years of our friendship George spent a lot of time in Washington, which fortunately is not far from Baltimore, and he came over frequendy to see Sigerist, his great inspiration. In this time falls also the finishing of his perhaps most original and least noticed book, his Specialization of Medicine. In 1946, when George came back from the