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Baron the fancy of Jenner (who was misled by the coexistence of tubercles and true hydatids in the lung of the ox), and led him to adopt the ‘hydatid’ theory of tubercle in general. Curiously enough, Dupuy, a French veterinarian, had been led two years earlier (1817), and independently of Baron, to adopt the same ‘hydatid’ theory to explain the hanging ‘pearls’ or ‘grapes’ which are the common form of tubercle in cattle. The coincidence of his own and Dupuy's observations had been found out by Baron before he published his second volume (1821), and the French veterinarian, as well as several old writers on human pathology, were marshalled in support of the theory. The theory is now completely discredited; but Baron's description of a variety of hanging tubercle in man, the same that has its proper habitat in the bovine species, is not likely to lose its interest. These services to pathological science, aided doubtless by his intimacy with Baillie and Jenner, procured him admission into the Royal Society in 1823.

[Address of the President of the Royal Med. Chir. Soc. 1 March 1852, in the Lancet, 1852, vol. i.]  BARON, or BARRON, RICHARD (d. 1766), republican, was born at Leeds, and educated at Glasgow 1737–40, which he left with a testimonial signed by Hutcheson and Simpson. Baron became a friend of Thomas Gordon, author of the ‘Independent Whig,’ and afterwards of Thomas Hollis, whom he helped in collecting works defending the republicanism of the seventeenth century. He edited in 1751 a collection of tracts by Gordon, under the title, ‘A Cordial for Low Spirits,’ 3 vols. 8vo; and in 1752 a similar collection by Gordon and others, called ‘The Follies of Priestcraft and Orthodoxy shaken,’ in 2 vols. An enlarged edition of the last, in four volumes, including tracts by Hoadly, Sykes, Arnall, and Archdeacon Blackburne, was prepared by him, and published in 1767 for the benefit of his widow and three children. In 1751 he also edited Algernon Sidney's ‘Discourse concerning Government,’ and in 1753 Milton's prose works (for which he received 10l. 10s.). An edition by Toland had appeared in 1697, and one by Birch in 1738. Baron afterwards found the second edition of the ‘Eikonoklastes,’ and reprinted it in 1756. He also edited Ludlow's ‘Memoirs’ in 1751, and Nedham's ‘Excellency of a Free State’ in 1757. Hollis engaged him in 1766 to superintend an edition of Marvell; but the plan dropped upon Baron professing his inability to supply the necessary information, and it was afterwards taken up by Captain Thompson in 1776. Baron is described as an artless and impetuous person, whose imprudence kept him poor. He died in ‘miserable circumstances’ in 1766.

[Protestant Dissenter Magazine, vi. 166; (Blackburne's) Memoir of Hollis, pp. 361–7, 573–86, &c.]  BARON, ROBERT (1593?–1639), divine, was at St. Andrews, where he is said to have distinguished himself in a disputation held before James I in 1617 (Preface to Metaphysica). He was minister of Keith in 1619, and was professor of divinity in the college of St. Salvator, St. Andrews, where he published ‘Philosophia Theologiæ ancillans,’ 1621. He became professor of divinity in Marischal College, Aberdeen, and minister of Greyfriars in 1624. In 1627 he received his D.D. degree, and published on this occasion his ‘Disputatio theologica de formali objecto fidei, hoc est, de Sacræ Scripturæ divina et canonica authoritate.’ This was answered by Turnbull, a Scotch Jesuit, to whom he replied in 1631 in a treatise called ‘Ad Georgii Turnebulli Tetragonismum Pseudographum Apodixis Catholica, seu Apologia pro disputatione de formali objecto fidei.’ In 1633 he published a ‘Disputatio theologica de vero discrimine peccati mortalis et venialis.’ In 1635 he contributed a funeral sermon to the collection called ‘Funerals of … Patrick Forbes, Bishop of Aberdeen.’ He took part in a famous debate against the covenanting commissioners in 1638, and on 20 March 1639 fled by sea to England, with other Aberdeen doctors, on the approach of Montrose, and was nominated by Charles I to the see of Orkney. He died at Berwick on his return, 19 Aug. 1639, aged about forty-six. He left a widow, who was forced to allow the inspection of his library by the presbytery of Aberdeen. She and her children received compensation for their sufferings on the Restoration. Besides the above, he is the author of ‘Metaphysica generalis: accedunt nunc primum quæ supererant ex parte speciali; opus postumum ex musæo A. Clementii Zirizæ,’ London (1657?), and Cambridge, 1685. He left various manuscripts, some of which are preserved in the King's College library, Aberdeen. For a full account of these writings see Gordon's ‘Scots Affairs,’ iii. 236–9, note.

[Scott's Fasti Ecclesiæ Scoticanæ, iii. 205, 473; Grub's Ecclesiastical History of Scotland, ii. 372, iii. 8, 56, 64; Gordon's Scots Affairs (Spalding Club), iii. 89, 90, 235.]  BARON, ROBERT (fl. 1645), poet and dramatist, claims distinction as one of the most successful of plagiarists. With so