Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/152

BARTHOLOW

BARTLETT Moreover, he had strange and disturbing views about sewerage, ventilation, cholera excreta, etc., which disturbed the conservative and rather drowsy Academy of Medicine, but the cholera epidemic of 1866 showed him to be the right man in the right place and as founder and editor of "The Clinic" he had a means of refuting hostile critics of which he took trenchant but dignified advantage.

While engrossed for twenty-two years in many medical duties, he was zealously garnering material for his big book, "Materia Medica and Therapeutics." In 1874 he published an experiment in the "American Journal of the Medical Sciences," made on a dying patient to confirm or modify the conclusions drawn by Hitzig and Ferrier as to the brain being tolerant of injury, his case proving the contrary in the human subject.

When he removed to Philadelphia his widespread reputation and his duties at the Philadelphia and Jefferson Hospital did not give him the leisure he craved to write his "Practice of Medicine," but it was finished and had a second edition in three months. Then he went on the staff of the "Medical News" (Philadelphia), his pen always busy with concise and lucid articles, particularly on medical jurisprudence. With mental powers always in order, he was ready for lecture, consultation, operation or critic, but in 1893 he retired from college work and was made emeritus professor. Tired he was, too, and needed a long rest but the rest came a little too late to restore his early vigor and he had been suffering from diabetes for some time, but, always cool, alert and self-possessed he had kept good hold of himself. When he did die, at Philadelphia, on May 10, 1904, he was seventy-two and had re-edited all his books to the standard he had ever striven for in his professional life and writings.

Among his appointments were:

Professor of medical chemistry and afterwards professor of practice of medicine, Medical College of Ohio; fellow of College of Physicians of Philadelphia; Honorary member of Royal Medical Society, Edinburgh, and the Society of Practice of Medicine, Paris; professor of materia medica, Jefferson Medical College; LL. D., Mount St. Mary's College.

His writings included many critical, sarcastic but fascinating articles for "The Clinic," of which he was founder and editor; also books on "Spermatorrhea;" "Materia Medica and Therapeutics," 1876, the result of twenty-two years' experience, his avowed aim "to stem the tide of therapeutic nihilism;" its editions numbered eleven; its sale 60,000 copies. "A Treatise on the Practice of Medicine" which went through five editions and was translated into Japanese. "The Cartwright Lectures," 1881, on the "Antagonism between Medicines and between Medicines and Diseases." D. W.

Bartlett, Elisha (1804-1855).

Born at Smithfield in 1804, Elisha Bartlett was singularly fortunate in his parents, who were members of the Society of Friends, strong, earnest souls, well endowed with graces of the head and of the heart.

At Smithfield, at Uxbridge, and at a well-known Friends' institution in New York, Bartlett obtained a very thorough preliminary education. Details of his medical course are not at hand, but after studying with Dr. Willard, of Uxbridge, Drs. Greene and Heywood, of Worcester, and Dr. Levi Wheaton, of Providence, and attending medical lectures at Boston and at Providence, he took his doctor's degree at Brown University in 1826, a year before the untimely end of the medical department.

In June, 1826, Bartlett sailed for Europe, and writing September 4, he speaks of attending every day at the Jardin des Plantes to hear the lectures of Cloquet and Cuvier.

In 1827, shortly after completing his twenty-third year, Bartlett settled at Lowell, then a town of only 3,500 inhabitants, but growing rapidly, owing to