Page:A cyclopedia of American medical biography vol. 1.djvu/159

 BASSETT

BASSETT

phia, one Joseph Breintnall, had before this taken some of Bartram's collections to Peter Collinson the London botanist which led to a fifty years correspondence between Bartram and learned men, such as Linnaeus, Sir Hans Sloane and Fothergill and to his election as a member of the Royal Society in London and in Stock- holm. Anyone desirous of some pleasant reading about this genial and learned Bartram should take an hour or two with "The Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall" by Dr. William Darlington, Philadelphia, 1849.

In January, 1723, Bartram married Mary, daughter of Richard Maris, of Chester, and had two sons, Richard and Isaac. Two years after her death in 1727 he married Ann Mendenhall and had nine children, James, Moses, Elizabeth, Mary, William, and Elizabeth (twins). Ann, John, and Benjamin.

His personal character in all records is shown to be that of a genial philanthro- pist with a capability for righteous wrath when necessary. He seems to have an- ticipated Tolstoy in the "Simple Life;" his slaves emancipated before the war, sitting at the lower end of the dining- table and the fare plentiful but plain. He loved his Bible too and read it to his boys and girls. Over the windows of his study was carved:

Tia God alone, Almighty Lord The holy One by me adored.

John Bartram., 177U.

"I want to die" were his last words as, nearly eighty years old, a short illness bore him, still keen-witted to the grave, and this utterance in days when death held great terror, shows the man even better than an inscription which anyone might carve. D. W.

Medicina Britannica. Phila. Biog.,by Thomas

Short.

Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry

Marshall. Dr. Wm. Darlington, Phila., 1849.

Bassett, John Y. (1S05-1S51).

When looking over the literature of malarial fevers in the South, chance threw in my way Fenner's "Southern

Medical Reports," Volumes I and II, which were issued in 1849-50 and 1850- 51. Among many articles of interest I was particularly impressed with two by Dr. John Y. Bassett, of Huntsville, Alabama.

Letters lent me by his daughter begin from Baltimore in the last week of December, 1835. He had lost his di- ploma, for he applied to Dr. James H. Miller, the president and professor of anatomy of the Washington Medical College, for a certificate, which is found among the papers, stating that he is a regular graduate of that institution, but not mentioning the year.

He took passage by the Roscoe, Capt. Delano in command, bound for Liverpool. He sailed on January 6, and in an interesting letter an account is given of the voyage. They reached the English Channel on the twenty-sixth.

The first long letter, descriptive of Manchester, York, and Edinburgh, is illustrated by very neat little sketches.

He was very enthusiastic about the museum of the College of Surgeons, and the Infirmary, where he witnessed in the presence of Mr. Syme, an operation by "Mr. Ferguson, a young surgeon."

In Paris he attached himself at once to the clinic of Velpeau at La Charite\ On his first day he says he did not under- stand more than half he said, but he understood his operations. He says there was a gentleman from Mobile, Mr. Jewett, who had been there for three years. Americans were not scarce; there were four or five from New York, two from Baltimore, and several from Boston and Philadelphia. He does not mention their names, but it is pleasant to tliink he may have attended classes at La Pitie' with Bowditch, Holmi Shattuck, Gerhard and Stille. He be- gan dissections at once; subjects were cheap-six francs apicce-and he secured a child on the first day for forty sous.

lie had evidently occupied his time tu good advantage, as, early in July he received from Velpeau the appointment ■ .I i •■. lime at La Charite\