Page:A History of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania.djvu/122

 having been a private practitioner, and one of the physicians of the Pennsylvania Hospital. He did not live to determine to what eminence he might have attained in the Chair of Practice, as, after one course of lectures had been delivered, and as the other was about to commence, death terminated his career on the 19th of December, 1815.

It has always been a matter of question whether Dr. Barton would have distinguished himself as a teacher of purely practical medicine, as he had done in the chair which afforded the opportunity of indulging in the especial bent of his genius. His reputation rests upon his success as a naturalist, and cultivator of the branches of knowledge depending upon the natural sciences for their elucidation.

He was born in the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1766, the son of an Episcopal clergyman there settled. His mother was the sister of the celebrated David Rittenhouse. Upon the death of his father he was transferred to the charge of the Rev. Dr. Andrews, afterwards Provost of the University of Pennsylvania, who then resided at York. He studied medicine under the direction of Dr. Shippen, at the period when the University had superseded the College, and in 1786 embarked for Europe to continue his studies. He was a student of the University of Edinburgh for two years, but did not graduate at that Institution, determining, from personal reasons, to obtain his diploma at the University of Gottingen.

The predilection of Dr. Barton for Natural History, and more especially for Botany, evinced itself very early. He manifested very soon in life a taste for drawing, and “in the execution of his designs with the pencil, at an immature age, he discovered that taste and genius in the art which he afterwards cultivated with much success.” It is said that his knowledge of drawing was acquired from the instruction of Major André, who was a prisoner of war at Lancaster. “This talent was often rendered subservient to his pursuits in Natural History and Botany, branches of science which are greatly assisted in their acquisition by the investigator having himself a facility in copying the subjects appertaining to them.” It was Dr. Barton’s opinion that “no man could become a wise, discriminating, and eminent botanist without possessing