Page:A Biographical Sketch (of B. S. Barton) - William P. C. Barton.djvu/25

Rh preceding winter, that he embarked last spring for Europe, with how little real benefit, or even melioration of his malady, I have already stated. Previous to his departure he had many symptoms of hydrothorax, and this disease, in fact, proved the immediate cause of his death. After his arrival at New York he was violently affected with the distressing symptoms of this disease, and his life for three weeks was despaired of. He was spared however to reach his home in this city, and after a protraction of this indulgence of Heaven long enough to receive the visits of all his relations and friends, near to him, as well as of most of his medical brethren of this city, he expired suddenly in the bosom of his family on the morning of the nineteenth day of December last. He was in fact found dead in his bed. His wife, three hours before, had seen him unusually tranquil in his sleep. He seemed to have a strong presentiment of his approaching dissolution on the evening preceding his decease: for he requested, contrary to his usual custom, that his physician, professor Wistar, should not be admitted to him that night, and refused to have the friction of his legs continued, intimating by his manner his conviction that neither medical advice, nor any remedies, could any longer be of service to him. He possessed his mental faculties, if not wholly unimpaired, at least unusually active and correct, till the last moment that he spoke. Three days before his death he wrote a memoir on a new genus of plants, named in honour of him, and requested me to make a drawing of one of the species to accompany it. This I did, and at the next meeting of the Philosophical Society, I read this memoir for him. It will of course make its appearance in the next printed volume of that society's transactions, and must always be viewed as a memento of his wonderful activity of mind, which continued its operations for the elucidation of science even to the last day or two of his life—and this too in the midst of disease, of pain, and of sorrow.

The following letter from his physician, Dr. Wistar, received this morning, will give you a more particular account of his last illness:

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"Your uncle was affected with the ordinary symptoms of hydrothorax. I believe the disease commenced before he left this