Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/154

 BARTLETT

BARTLETT

"An Essay on the Philosophy of Medicine," 1S44, a classic in American medical literature, is the most character- istic of Bartlett's works, and the one to which in the future students will turn most often, since it represents one of the most successful attempts to apply the principles of deductive reasoning to medicine, and it moreover illustrates the mental attitude of an acute and thoughtful observer in the middle of the century.

In 1S4S appeared one of Bartlett's most characteristic works, a little volume of eighty-four pages, entitled, "An Inquiry into the Degree of Certainty of Medicine, and into the Nature and Ex- tent of its Power over Disease." The reception of the essay in certain quarters indicates how shocking its tone appeared to some of the staid old conservatives of the day. I came across a review of it in the "Medical Examiner," November, 1848, from which I give the following extract: "This is a curious production, the like of which we have seldom seen from the pen of anyone who had passed the age of a sophomore. What makes it the more remarkable is the circum- stance that the writer is a gentleman of education and experience and the author of works which have given him a wide reputation."

The last of Bartlett's strictly medical publications was a little monograph on the "History, Diagnosis and Treatment of Edematous Laryngitis," published in Louisville at the time he held the chair of practice at the University in 1850.

Bartlett was at his best in the occa- sional address. Perhaps the most char- acteristic is one entitled, "The Head and the Heart, or the Relative Impor- tance of Intellectual and Moral Educa- tion," which is a stirring plea for a higher tone in social and political mor- ality. In the same clear, ringing accent he speaks in his address on Spurzheim of the dangers of democracy. In a lec- ture on the "Sense of the Beautiful," delivered in 1S43, Bartlett appears as an apostle of culture, pleading in glow-

ing language for the education of this faculty.

One of the last of Bartlett's publica- tions was "A Discourse on the Times, Character and Writings of Hippocrates," delivered as an introductory address before the trustees, faculty and medical class of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, at the opening of the session of 1852-53. The three pictures which he gives of Hippocrates as a young practitioner in the Isle of Thasos, at the death-bed of Pericles, and as a teacher in the Isle of Cos, are masterpieces worthy of Walter Savage Landor.

When at Louisville some obscure nervous trouble, the nature of which I have not been able to ascertain, at- tacked Dr. Bartlett. Against it in New York he fought bravely but in vain, and after the session of 1S53-54 retired to Smithfield, his native place. The pro- longed illness terminated in paralysis, but, fortunately, did not impair his mental faculties in the slightest degree. He died on the nineteenth of July, 1855. W. O.

Elisha Bartlett, a Rhode Island Philosopher, by William Osier, Providence, 1900. An address on the life. . . Elisha Bartlett. Delivered before the Middlesex North Dis- trict Med. Soc, 1855 (E. Huntington).

Bartlett, Josiah (1729-1795).

Josiah Bartlett, was born in New- bury, Massachusetts, November 21, 1729, the son of Stephen and Mary Webster Bartlett.

At sixteen he began to study medicine with a Dr. Ordury. He soon exhausted the scanty library and resorted to other physicians for a supply.

In 1750, having completed his medical education, he began to practice at Kings- ton, New Hampshire.

In 1733 and again in 1735 a "distemper" originated in Kingston, which eluded all the powers of the physicians. This was called the "Throat Distemper or Angina Maligna." The disease spread rapidly, and among children was universally fatal.

The depleting and antiphlogistic course