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Dear Dr. Walsh:I beg to thank you for your interesting letter enclosing syllabus of Advent Lectures and circular of your latest work. The highest value attaches to historical research on the lines you so ably indicate, especially at the present time, when the enemies of Holy Church are making renewed efforts to show her antagonism to science and human progress generally. I shall have much pleasure in perusing your work entitled "The Thirteenth Greatest of Centuries."
Wishing you every blessing, I am, Yours sincerely in Xt., Rome, January 18th, 1908. R. Card. MERRY DEL VAL.
A series of Biographies of the men to whom we owe the important advances in the development of modern medicine. By James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., LL.D., Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine at Fordham University School of Medicine, N. Y. Third Edition, 1914, 442 pp. Price, $3.00 net.
The London Lancetsaid: "The list is well chosen, and we have to express gratitude for so convenient and agreeable a collection of biographies, for which we might otherwise have to search through many scattered books. The sketches are pleasantly written, interesting, and well adapted to convey the thoughtful members of our profession just the amount of historical knowledge that they would wish to obtain. We hope that the book will find many readers."
The New York Times: "The book is intended primarily for students of medicine, but laymen will find it not a little interesting."
Il Morgagni(Italy): "Professor Walsh narrates important lives in modern medicine with an easy style that makes his book delightful reading. It certainly will give the young physician an excellent idea of who made our modern medicine."
The Church Standard(Protestant Episcopal): "There is perhaps no profession in which the lives of its leaders would make more fascinating reading than that of medicine, and Dr. Walsh by his clever style and sympathetic treatment by no means mars the interest which we might thus expect."
The New York Medical Journal: "We welcome works of this kind; they are evidence of the growth of culture within the medical profession, which betokens that the time has come when our teachers have the leisure to look backward to what has been accomplished."
Science: "The sketches are extremely entertaining and useful. Perhaps the most striking thing is that everyone of the men described was of the Catholic faith, and the dominant idea is that great scientific work is not incompatible with devout adherence to the tenets of the Catholic religion."
By Brother Potamian, F. S. C, Sc. D. (London), Professor of Physics in Manhattan College, and James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D., Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine, New York. Fordham University Press, 110 West 74th Street. Illustrated Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
The Scientific American: "One will find in this book very good sketches of the lives of the great pioneers in Electricity, with a clear presentation of how it was that these men came to make their fundamental experiments, and how we now reach conclusions in Science that would have been impossible until their work of revealing was done. The biographies are those of Peregrinus, Columbus, Norman and Gilbert, Franklin and some contemporaries, Galvini, Volta, Coulomb, Oersted, Ampere, Ohm, Faraday, Clerk Maxwell, and Kelvin."
The Boston Globe: "The book is of surpassing interest."
The New York Sun: "The researches of Brother Potamian among the pioneers in antiquity and the Middle Ages are perhaps more interesting than Dr. Walsh's admirable summaries of the accomplishment of the heroes of modern science. The book testifies to the excellence of Catholic scholarship."
The Evening Post: "It is a matter of importance that the work and lives of men like Gilbert, Franklin, Galvini, Volta, Ampere and others should be made known to the students of Electricity, and this office has been well fulfilled by the present authors. The book is no mere compilation, but brings out many interesting and obscure facts, especially about the earlier men."
The Philadelphia Record: "It is a glance at the whole field of Electricity by men who are noted for the thoroughness of their research, and it should be made accessible to every reader capable of taking a serious interest in the wonderful phenomena of nature."
Electrical World: "Aside from the intrinsic interest of its matter, the book is delightful to read owing to the graceful literary style common to both authors. One not having the slightest acquaintance with electrical science will find the book of absorbing interest as treating in a human way and with literary art the life work of some of the greatest men of modern times; and, moreover, in the course of his reading he will incidentally obtain a sound knowledge of the main principles upon which almost all present-day electrical development is based. It is a shining example of how science can be popularized without the slightest twisting of facts or distortion of perspective. Electrical readers will find the book also a scholarly treatise on the evolution of electrical science, and a most refreshing change from the "Engineering English" of the typical technical writer."
A Series of Lectures and Addresses on Phases of Education in the Past Which Anticipate Most of Our Modern Advances, by James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., Litt. D., K. C. St. G. Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1910. 470 pp. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 Cents Extra.
Cardinal Moran (Sydney, Australia): "I have to thank you for the excellent volume Education How Old the New. The lectures are admirable, just the sort of reading we want for English readers of the present day."
New York Sun: "It is all bright and witty and based on deep erudition."
The North American(Phila.): "Wide historical research, clear graphic statement are salient elements of this interesting and suggestive addition to the modern welter of educational literature."
Detroit Free Press: "Full of interesting facts and parallels drawn from them that afford much material for reflection."
Chicago Inter-Ocean: "Incidentally it does away with a number of popular misconceptions as to education in the Middle Ages and as to education in the Latin-American countries at a somewhat later time. The book is written in a straight unpretentious and interesting style."
Wilkes-Barre Record: "The volume is most interesting and shows deep research bearing the marks of the indefatigable student."
Pittsburg Post: "There is no bitterness of controversy and one of the first things to strike the reader is that the dean of Fordham quotes from nearly everybody worth while, Protestant or Catholic, poetry, biography, history, science or what not."
The Wall Street News(N. Y.): "The book is calculated to cause a healthy reduction in the conceit which each generation enjoys at the expense of that which preceded it."
Rochester Post Express: "The book is well worth reading."
The New Orleans Democrat: "The book makes very interesting reading, but there is a succession of shocks in store in it for the complacent New Englander or Bostonian and for the orthodox or perfunctory reader of American literature."
The Story of the Medical Sciences during the Middle Ages. By James J. Walsh, K. C. St, G., M. D., Ph. D. Dean and Professor of the History of Medicine and of Nervous Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine. Fordham University Press, 1911. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 cents.
What we now know of art, architecture, literature, the arts and crafts in the Middle Ages has almost won for them the name of the Bright Ages instead of the Dark Ages. There seems just one dark spot—the neglect of science. This book removes that. It tells the story of medieval medical education with higher standards than ours, of medieval surgery with anaesthesia and antisepsis, with beautiful hospitals and fine nursing, and of medieval dentistry with gold fillings and bridgework.
The Lancet(London): "We have said enough to whet the appetite of all interested in the history of the early makers of medicine. We cordially commend the perusal of this fascinating volume, which shows how much was accomplished in every department of intellectual effort in what is usually regarded as the unprogressive, stagnant, dark period of the Middle Ages."
The New York Worldsaid: "As in Dr. Walsh's 'Thirteenth The Greatest of Centuries' he carries amazement with his revelations of how old are many things we call new."
Lectures on various academic occasions by James J. Walsh, M. D., Ph. D., K. C. St. G., Litt, D., Sc. D. Dean and Professor of The History of Medicine and of Functional Nervous Diseases at Fordham University School of Medicine, Fordham University Press, 1912. Pp. 450 Twelve illustrations. Price, $2.50 net. Postage, 15 cents.
Though delivered on various occasions, these lectures are all on the theme that our modern progress is but a repetition of previous phases of human accomplishment and that whenever men faced certain problems they solved them as well at any time in history as they do now. Educational problems are shown to have been the same in Greece and Rome as in our own time. Old time prescriptions in medicine are strangely like many that we have now. Old time dentists filled teeth with gold and tin, did fine bridgework, invented movable dentures, transplanted teeth successfully and anticipated our dental progress. Pronunciation, Old and New, shows that the Irish brogue is Shakespeare's pronunciation while The Women of Two Republics demonstrates how old are our political problems, even suffragettism. "The book is disillusioning, but marvelously illuminating."