Page:The Biographical Dictionary of America, vol. 02.djvu/99

 BYRON.

BYRON.

of Mount St. Mary's college, Enimittsburg, and extricating it from the financial embarrassments which threatened its existence. On his return to Boston, after three years" leave of absence, he Avas made rector of St. Joseph's church in that city, February, 1884. In 1888 Fatlier Byrne rep- resented the archbishop of Boston at the golden jubilee of Pope Leo XIII. in Rome. In the same year he visited Ireland, and in recognition of his services to the cause of Irish nationalism in America received distinguished attentions from the Irish clergy, the Irish parliamentary party, and the people generally ; and an ovation in his birthplace, Kilmessan. Father Byrne founded the Boston temperance missions, and actively interested himself in prison reform. He is the author of an able and popular book on Cathnlic Doctrine, and contributed the chapter, The Roman Catholic Church in Boston, to the great Memorial History of Boston published by Messrs. J. R. Osgood & Co. His thorough knowl- edge of the Spanish language and literature enabled liim to make many prose and poetical translations from that tongue. In 1888, on tlie invitation of tiie Universalist ministers f)f Bos- ton, he addres.sed them on Aids to Practical Piety. In 1893 he addressed a club of students of Harvard university on Authority as a Medium of Religious Knoniledge. Before the Catholic section of the congress of religions at the (Chicago world's fair, he read a paper on Authority in Matters of Faith. He was one of the preachers in the doctrinal courses of the Catholic summer school of America, at the sessions of 1893 and 1896. He gave a lecture on one phase of modern Spanish literature before the Catholic university of America in 1895. It was largely through Father Byrne's efforts, in memory of his close friendship with the dead poet, that S. J. Kitson's bust of John Boyle O'Reilly was placed in the Catholic University at Washington. At the ded- ication of the John Boyle O'Reilly statue in Bos- ton in 1896, he gave the closing benediction. He served as president of the corporation of St. Eliza- beth's hospital, Boston, and was officially con- nected, as trustee or otherwise, with many of the educational and charitable institutions conducted by members of his faith.

BYRON, John W., bacteriologist, was born at Lima, Peru, July 24, 1861. He studied medicine and practised for a few years in his native city, after which he studied and practised in Eu- rope where he made a specialty of diseases origi- nating in bacteria. When he returned to Peru yellow fever was raging there, and he was put in charge of several large public hospitals. From Lima he went to Havana to study the malarial fevers of Cuba, during an epidemic of yellow fever. He was only twenty-four j^ears of age,

but the local officials, recognizing his ability, deposed the older physicians, and put him in charge of the many yellow fever hospitals Avhich had been erected. He was finally taken down w^ith the disease, was treated according to his own instructions, and .soon recovered. When the plague finally left Havana, Dr, Byron went back to Lima and continued his studies there. On cholera breaking out in Cuba, in 1884, he went to Havana again, giving up everything to study the disease. He showed the same fearlessness of contagion that he had dur- ing the yellow fever epidemics, and escaped infection. Later when he went to Europe again his knowledge of cholera was recognized by the leading men of France and Germany. He visited Paris and Berlin, attending lectures at the uni- versities, and pursuing original investigation at the hospitals. His fame as a bacteriologist had preceded him to New York, where he went in 1890, and was made chief of the bacteriological department of the Loomis laboratory; he also became lecturer in that branch of medicine in the university medical college, and later was connected with the New York dispensary for three years. In his original work Dr. Byron made special advance in two subjects, — the forms of the micro-organisms which produce malarial fevers, and the bacteria of leprosy, which had not long been known as a disease produced by bacteria. With some of the baciUi of leprosy in his possession he produced leprosy in his laboratory in a gelatine medium, upon which the bacilli act the same as they do on the human system. He also made extensive studies in smallpox, and he wrote many papers on the sub- ject of bacteriological diseases; he wrote and lectured on it freii[uently before medical men. When cholera reached New Y'ork in September, 1893, Dr. Byron decided to go where the disease was quarantined and make as extensive study of it as possible, and for over a month lived with the cholera patients, studying the diseases and doing as much good as he could. While in charge of the Loomis laboratory, and experimenting with the bacilli of tuberculosis, he contracted consumjition. He discovered his condition on March 1:5. 11^94, when he had been infected a month. Familiarity with dangerous bacteria had made him careless, and both his lungs were badly affected. He con- tinued his experiments until July, when he went abroad for his health, and returned slightly im- proved. He assisted Health Officer Jenkins in openins: a hospital for contagious diseases at Fort Wadsworth. Staten Lsland, N. Y., of which he was to have entire charge, but before the A\'ork was entirely completed Dr. Byron suc- cumbed to his disease, and died, a martyr to his devotion to science. May 8, 1895.