Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/156

 BARTLETT

BARTON

James Thacher states that "perhaps no man contributed more time and active exertion to improve the state of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and through it, the interests of medical literature, than Dr. Bartlett." He de- livered two public discourses of a medical nature, one before the Middlesex District Society and one before the Massachusetts Medical Society, the latter being well known as an interesting historical sketch of medical characters in the early days of the country.

He also published various papers on medical subjects in the communications of the Medical Society and in the "New England Journal of Medicine and Sur- gery."

Although engaged in extensive prac- tice Dr. Bartlett found time for activity in civil offices and was at various times elected representative, senator and coun- cillor in the state government.

Bartlett was deeply interested in the early history of New England and especi- ally in the development of its educational and literary institutions. Among his researches is the following information: "The Congregational Church was estab- lished in Charlestown in 1633, in which the Rev. John Harvard officiated for a short time before his death in 1638; his age is unknown. All that can be ascer- tained of this gentleman is that he had been a minister in England, and died soon after his arrival in this country, that he preached a short time in this town, and bequeathed about eight hundred pounds to the college. The writer has repeat- edly searched for his grave, but can dis- cover nothing to designate it."

He corrected the mistake of Dudley, Mather, Holmes and other colonial writers regarding the year of arrival of Gov. Winthrop at Charlestown with fifteen hundred persons, which had been given as 1630, to the true date, 1629, as shown by the original town records of Charlestown.

Dr. Bartlett's character was remark- able for industry, activity and intelli- gence. He never declined any duty

which was assigned him, and always ex- ecuted it speedily and thoroughly.

Perhaps no individual in this vicinity delivered so great a number of public orations on medical, political and liter- ary topics. He possessed a physical constitution which promised a long as well as an active life, but he was stricken with apoplexy on March 3, 1820, and died two days later. A. N. B.

Hist. Har. Med. School. T. F. Harrington, vol. i.

Mass. Hist. Soc'y. Proceedings, vol. i. Memoir by Richard Frothingham. Oration by Robert T. Davis.

Barton, Benjamin Smith (1766-1815).

One of America's foremost botanists, Benjamin Barton was the son of the Rev. Thomas Barton, an Episcopal min- ister, and born on February 10, 1776, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The boy was only eight when his mother died and but fourteen when left an orphan. He went to live with an elder brother and was a student at the College of Philadel- phia, beginning his study of medicine under Dr. William Shippen, Jr. While still a pupil of his he journeyed with his maternal uncle, David Rittenhouse and the other commissioners appointed to survey the western boundary of Penn- sylvania, and thus had his attention directed to the study of the Indian tribes, a subject which possessed the greatest interest for him throughout life. In 1786 he went abroad to pursue his med- ical and scientific studies, first in Edin- burgh and London, afterwards going to Gottingen, where he received the M. D. degree.

His reasons for not taking the degree of M. D. to which he was entitled by his studies at Edinburgh University were set forth in a letter to his brother, written in London in 1789, in which he states that he preferred getting his diploma from Gottingen because he was dis- satisfied with the discourteous manner in which two of the professors at the University of Edinburgh had treated him. He, however, when in Edinburgh