SKETCH OF JOHN AND WILLIAM B ARTE AM. 827 



SKETCH OF JOHN AND WILLIAM BARTRAM. 



DURING the century which preceded the American Revolu- 

 tion the science of the colonies, like their commerce, was 

 tributary to that of the Old World. Fabulous reports in regard 

 to the natural resources of America had been brought home by 

 European voyagers, and the cultivators of all sciences and arts 

 were looking to that vast unexplored region for products which 

 should increase the knowledge of the naturalist, the resources of 

 the physician and the agriculturist, the profits of the merchant, 

 and the enjoyment of the man of leisure. The function of those 

 colonists who inclined to natural history was that of explorers 

 and collectors, and among the earliest and most notable of these 

 American collectors were the subjects of this sketch. 



The grandfather of the elder Bartram, also named John, came 

 from Derbyshire, England, to Pennsylvania in 1G82. He brought 

 his wife, three sons, and one daughter, and settled near Darby, in 

 Delaware (then Chester) County. The third son, William, was 

 the only one who married, his wife being Elizabeth, daughter of 

 James Hunt, Both families belonged to the Society of Friends. 

 The children of William were John (the botanist), James, Will- 

 iam, and a daughter who died young. The second William went 

 to North Carolina and settled near Cape Fear ; John and James 

 remained in Pennsylvania. 



The date of John Bartram's birth was March 23, 1G99. But 

 little is on record concerning his early years. Like the majority 



ample, blood charged with poison which have escaped from the skin and lungs, and been 

 rebreathed into the system — would have the same favoring effect upon them as the un- 

 healthy tissue. Both are likely to present them with the food they require. If this be so, 

 then just as the bacteria that cause disease are favored by the external poisons they find 

 ill vitiated air, so also they may be internally favored by the unhealthy slate of the bron- 

 c'liial and lung tissues of those persons who habitually breathe the poisons of shut-up 

 rooms. Thus, these organic poisons, both within and without a man, would tend to make 

 him a prey to those illnesses in which the success of the germ depended upon its proper — 

 might we say — food being supplied to it ; and it would seem probable that, by constant 

 attention to the purity of the air which we breathe, we might do much toward securing 

 iudividual exemption from the danger of infectious diseases. An instructive passage in 

 Dr. Carpenter (p. 365) which bears on this point should be read. It is also worth quoting 

 Prof. Nussbaum (see an interesting article by Mrs. Priestley, May, Nineteenth Century, p. 

 825) : " It is known with certainty that the cholera bacillus is dangerous only to those per- 

 sons whose stomach is not in a healthy state, and jeopardizes life only when it passes into 

 the intestines. A healthy stomach will digest the bacillus, and therefore it does not reach 

 the intestines in a living state." It is, perhaps, right to refer here to a theory that in the 

 blood and connective and lymphatic tissues (Klein, p. 243) there exists a clan of protective 

 cells (phagocytes), whose office it is to overpower invading bacteria of a dangerous charac- 

 ter ; and, according to Metschnikoff (Ann. de I'lnstitut Pasteur) these can, in case of need, 

 emigrate to any part of the body which is invaded by parasites. 



