18 j6.] Life of Professor Barlon. 235 



materia mcdicn in tlie University, some ed reputation : besides tlicse motives, ho 

 time iu tlie course of the winter. liad determined to devote the remainder 



To this chair Dr. Barton was shortly of his Hie to tlie more important chair 

 after appointed, being then bnt jnst to wliich he had succeeded, 

 turned of thirty years of age, and having These declarations were an earnest 

 been professor of natural history and of tiiat assiduous application to the du- 

 botany near six years. And here, gen- tics of his new chair, which he cerlain- 

 tlemen, begins and rests tiie high pro- ly paid with, to him, a tatal degree oC 

 ^ ~ faithfulness and labour. His constitu- 



tion had been worn down by reiterated 

 fits of irregular gout; and a recent, as 

 well as severe, altatU of haemoptisis, hadj 

 lett him even b\it a remnant of that 

 trembling and precarious health which, 

 for years before, had been his compa- 

 nion. As no sickness could tame th» 

 vi\id flaslies of his mind, ever active. 



fcssional reputation of Dr. Barton 

 medicine. To the important lectures 

 on this subject, continued by him till 

 the period when the loss of one of the 

 great pillars of this medical school af- 

 forded him an opportunity of a trans- 

 lation to the vacant chair of the practice 

 of physic, is entirely attributable the 

 present conspicuous clc". ation of the 

 Matefia-3Iediia professorship in this restless, and engaged, his hours of pain 



university. Those who have attended 

 the lectures of the late professor on this 

 point of medical science, can bear ho- 

 nourable and powerful testimony in fa- 

 vour of their importance, their learning, 

 their usefulness; and it is no small cir- 

 cumstance in favour of the exertions of 

 his successor in this cliair, that we hear 

 nothing of its reputatioti being in any 

 degree deteriorated, although the pre- 



wcre continually aggravated by an at- 

 ten ion to his studies, and the duties 

 of his chair. Nature was not equal to 

 the task imposed on her ; and, as she 

 ever returns in sickness and in disease 

 the hours which are purloined by active 

 minds from her customary and neces- 

 sary rest. Dr. Barton soon perceived 

 the pernicious consequences of his 

 midnight and injudicious toils. That 



sent incumbent succeeded to it under his efforts to support the reputation of 



circumstances of a very discouraging, the university curtailed his existence, I 



nay, almost overwhelming, nature. firmly believe. He had delivered but 



Upon the death of Professor Rush, two courses of lectures in the practical 



Dr. Barton became desirous of filling chair, when his increasing ill health 



bis chair ; he accordingly applied for it, forced him to have recourse to the last 



and was appointed some few months resort to renovate bis constitution — I 



after the decease of his learned prede- mean a sea voyage. He accordingly 



ccssor. This chair he held, in conjunc- 

 tion with that of natural history and bo- 

 tany, tilltheday of his death ; itwas, how- 

 ever, his intention, had he lived, to resign 

 the latter. He believed that the duties of 

 •a lecturer on natural history and botany 

 required all the fire, tlie zeal, the bodily 

 and laborious exertions of a young man. 



embai-ked tiir Trance in tiie month of 

 of April 1815, and returned by the way 

 of England in November following, not 

 benefitted by his too hasty tra\el and 

 retm-n. Previous to his dcpartura he 

 had many sym|)toms of hydrothorax; 

 and this disease, in fact, jiroved the im- 

 mediate cause of his deatli. After his 



The energy and fervour he had once airival at New York he was violently 



shown in teaching those branches be 

 believed himself no longer ca|iab!c of, 

 neither did he wish to substitute, for the 

 necessary pcrambulatory excursions 

 with his botanical class (which had id- 

 ways been frequent), the tame anil un- 

 insfrncfive lectures of an old, and, \^liat 



affcetcd with the distressing symptoms 

 of this disease, and his lilb for three 

 weeks was despaired of. ile expired 

 suddenlj, in the bosom of liis i'amiij', 

 on the morning of the lytli of Decem- 

 ber last. 



Such was the event that lias bereaved 



is an inevitalde consequence, of a closet the cause of science of one of its ablest^ 



teacher. — (Fe well knew that demonstia- its truest, and its most substai.liai advo- 



live brandies, like those of natural his- cates. Dr. Barton, in tlie eo'nmence- 



tory, i-oiild never be I'aithfnlly taught, ment of his career, was not only indi, 



nor properly elucidated, by a man gent, but oppressed; he confiiiued \\\% 



whose age n;iturally made him prone to exertions, iiowever, un<lisimi\ed b\ po- 



the more inactive |)ursiiils of life. Ifc vcrty, and uninlimidated by eucinies. 



had been eminent as a teacher oi' those 

 •cicnces, because he was young and 

 active — when he became older he was 

 unwilling to detract lioxu his wcil-earn- 



And, to those who know more intimalc- 

 ly than it would be proper to stale in 

 this memoir, the struggles he made iii 

 «arly life lLiou'j;h t!ii' mo.st distonra- 



JI h 2 t;i„.. 



