of Philadelphia with the University of the State of Pennsylvania in 1791. On the resignation of Dr. Griffith from the chair of materia medica in Pennsylvania University, Dr. Barton was appointed. When Benjamin Rush died he became professor of the theory and practice of medicine, continuing to hold also the chair of natural history.
His published works include: "The Elements of Zoology and Botany," "Elements of Botany, or Outlines of the Natural History of Vegetables "Collections for an Essay towards the Materia Medica of the United States;" "Fragments of the Natural History of Pennsylvania;" "Essay on the Fascinating Power Ascribed to Serpents, etc.," "Views of the Origin of the Tribes and Nations of America."
In 1805 he started publishing the Medical and Physical Journal and also wrote many short articles on topics connected with medicine, history and archæology, much of his work appearing in the "Transactions of the American Philosophical Society."
During his early years he was much afflicted with pulmonary hemorrhages and gout. He had given only two courses as the successor of Rush when he had to seek relief by a sea voyage. He sailed for France in 1815, returning by way of England disheartened. At New York he was afflicted with hydrothorax. Finally reaching home, very ill, he became rapidly worse and was found dead in bed on the morning of December 19, 1815. Feverishly anxious to work, three days before his death he wrote a paper concerning a genus of plants named in his honor by Nuttall, a young English botanist whom Barton had financed for a scientific tour in the Southern States. The plants were of the class Icosandria monogynia, found in hilly districts between the Platte and the Andes and named Bartonia polypetala and Bartonia superha.
He was a member of the Imperial Society of Naturalists of Moscow; the Danish Royal Society of Sciences; the Linnaean Society of London; and of the Society of Antiquaries, Scotland.
Barton married, in 1797, a daughter of Edward Pennington of Philadelphia, and named his eldest son after Pennant, the English naturalist.
Barton, Edward H. (——1859)
Edward H. Barton was born at Fredericksburg, Virginia. He was a non-graduate member of the class of 1813 at Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa., and received the honorary degree of A. M. from that college in 1830. He went to the University of Pennsylvania, where he received the degree of A. M. and in 1817 that of M. D., when his thesis was on "Epilepsy." The founders of the Medical College of Louisiana (1834) were Thomas Hunt, professor of physiology and anatomy; John Harrison, adjunct professor and demonstrator of anatomy; A. H. Cenas, professor of midwifery; C. A. Luzenberg, professor of surgery; T. R. Ingalls, professor of chemistry; E. B. Smith, professor of materia medica. Before the session began, Professor Smith withdrew and Dr. Barton accepted the chair. He was dean from 1836 to 1841, when he resigned.
Barton's writings were chiefly on meteorology and vital statistics and the hygiene of New Orleans and Louisiana. He wrote "The Cause and Prevention of Yellow Fever at New Orleans and Other Cities in America." The third edition (282 pp.) was published in 1857; he wrote on this subject in the Report on Yellow Fever of the Sanitary Commission (1853).
He died of heart disease at New Orleans in 1859.
Barton, John Rhea (1794–1871)
J. Rhea Barton, the originator of resection of the joints for anchylosis, the son of Judge William Barton, was born in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in April, 1794, and died in Philadelphia Jan. 1, 1871. He was a nephew of Benjamin Smith Barton, eminent botanist and professor of materia medica in the University of Pennsylvania. Before taking his degree he was appointed to an apprenticeship in the Pennsylvania hospital, according to the then custom of taking on young men beginning their studies for a five year period, and finding everything for them except their clothes; graduation took place as near as possible at the termination of the indenture. He took his medical degree in 1818, with Hugh L. Hodge (q.v.) and George B. Wood (q.v.). He worked under Physick, Dorsey and Hewson, and had as fellow internes Benjamin H. Coates, Rene La Roche, Isaac Hays, and John K. Mitchell (q.v.). He was made surgeon to the Philadelphia Almshouse in 1818.
In 1823 he was appointed to the surgical
