Warbasse, James Peter (22 November 1866–22 February 1957), economic reformer and surgeon, was born in Newton, New Jersey, the son of Joseph Warbasse and Harriet Delphine Northrup. After graduating from Newton Collegiate Institute in 1885, followed by a year studying at home, he entered the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, from which he received an M.D. in 1889. Warbasse completed a two-year internship at Methodist Episcopal Hospital in Brooklyn, did postgraduate study at the Universities of Göttingen and Vienna, and then returned to New York City, where he served in the outpatient departments of the Chambers Street and Roosevelt Hospitals. In 1892 he returned to Methodist Episcopal, starting as assistant attending surgeon and progressing to attending surgeon three years later. Soon after his initial appointment, Warbasse set up a laboratory of surgical pathology and bacteriology at the hospital; it is credited with being the nation’s first such facility. When the Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, Warbasse volunteered. He served in Florida and Cuba, first as a medical officer with the 7th Army Corps and then as surgeon to the 13th Artillery Regiment of New York State. Having seen the cruelties of war at firsthand, he became a pacifist....
