Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/167

BRINTON health, and in August he was prostrated by an attack of dysentery to which he succumbed on September 8.

The Utica State Hospital is an enduring monument of his ability as an organizer, and his annual reports and editorial writings in the Journal of Insanity bear witness to his professional fitness for his pioneer service in the state of New York. It may be said without hesitation that his most prominent characteristic was a benevolent interest in his fellow men. His self-reliance and strong determination were traits which served equally to advance his own beneficent ambitions and the welfare of the afflicted in his care. Not at all covetous of personal popularity, he was governed in all his acts by conscience rather than by considerations of human respect. His last publication, "The Asylum Souvenir," dedicated to those who had been under his care, is a collection of aphorisms and maxims to aid in the restoration and preservation of health; among them he placed a quotation from Bryant which describes the purpose of his life and the manner of his death:

So live, that when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves To that mysterious realm, where each shall take His chamber in the silent halls of death. Thou go not like the quarry-slave at night. Scourged to his dungeon, but sustain'd and sooth'd By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave, Like one who draws the drapery of his couch About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.



Brinton, Jeremiah Bernard (1835–1894)

J. Bernard Brinton, physician and botanist, was born on August 16, 1835, near Waynesburg, Chester County, Pennsylvania; his parents were members of the Society of Friends, his father being Jacob Lindley Brinton and his mother Annie Bernard. He lived for a short time in Philadelphia, where he attended the Philadelphia High School, and then moved to a farm in Maryland. In 1857 he began to study medicine and graduated at Jefferson Medical College in 1859. He practised and was lecturer on practical anatomy at the Philadelphia School of Anatomy and Operative Surgery

Soon after the Civil war broke out he applied for a position as assistant surgeon and was commissioned in 1862; in 1863 he was appointed medical purveyor to the Army of the Potomac and held this position until the close of the war, when he was mustered out with the rank of major. During this time he kept up his interest in botany and continued collecting plants; his collections were captured by Colonel Mosby, the guerilla in the Confederate Army, who burned them.

He returned to Philadelphia and after a few years' practice retired from medicine and engaged in business. He joined the Academy of Natural Sciences in 1878, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 1884, when the Association met in Philadelphia and Brinton acted as guide to the visiting botanists to the pine barren region of New Jersey; it was on this occasion that he showed the Schicaea pusilla (Pursh) to Asa Gray and to Carruthers, president of the Linnaean Society. He became an active member of the Torrey Botanical Club and was its president until his death.

Brinton made a study of the Pine Barrens of New Jersey, in which he was an authority; although he published little, he made many exchanges and corresponded with American botanists. He was a large collector and dexterous in dissecting botanical specimens; his skill as a cabinet-maker made it possible for him to make his herbarium cases, cabinets and stands, excellent examples of amateur work. He was noted for great accuracy and painstaking work; he had a remarkable memory for names and persons.

In 1862 Dr. Brinton married Sallie W. Clemens of Philadelphia; his wife died before him, but a daughter and two sons survived him.

He died suddenly in Philadelphia December 6, 1894.



 Brinton, John Hill (1832–1907)

John Hill Brinton was born in Philadelphia May 21, 1832. He received his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1852; from the University of Pennsylvania A.M. in 1853 and LL.D. in 1901. After a year's post-graduate work in Paris and Vienna he began to practise in Philadelphia. He served in the Civil War and was with Grant in the Tennessee and Cumberland River campaign in 1862; the same year he was ordered to Washington for duty in the office of the Surgeon General, and while there worked on the first part of the "Medical and Surgical History of the War of the Rebellion," writing the article on Gunshot Wounds; also he started the nucleus of the