BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON 95 



question the pale lips which had perhaps longed 

 to give some last message some instructions as 

 to his work. There was so much to be completed ; 

 but, noting the list of writings Prof. Uri Lloyd 

 has gathered, 2 these, as well as the prematurely 

 closed life, seem to merit the epitaph " Com- 

 plete." 



There is a remarkable resemblance between 

 the celebrated English doctor, Dr. Richard Mead 

 (1673-1754), and our American worthy, Dr. 

 Barton, as will be seen from a proof etching in 

 my possession. A beautiful flowering plant, the 

 Dodecatheon Meadia (Catesby), is named after 

 Mead. 



William Paul Crillon Barton, 1783-1856, his 

 nephew, who wrote a good biography of his 

 uncle, must have had much in common with him, 

 for he too was a passionate botanist. It was the 

 fashion of those days for students to take the 

 name of some hero; so William became " William 

 Paul Crillon " Barton, graduated M. D. in 1808 

 from the University of Pennsylvania, and became 

 a naval surgeon the following year. His thesis 

 On the Chemical Properties and Exhilarat- 

 ing Effects of Nitrous Oxide Gas was the stand- 

 ard treatise of the time. From 1816-1822 he was 

 Professor of Botany in the University of Penn- 

 sylvania, but he wrote in 1814 a famous Treatise 



2 Bull, of the Lloyd Library, No. i, 1910. 

 9 



