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.
