BENJAMIN SMITH BARTON 89 



thus having his attention directed to the study of 

 the Indian tribes, a subject which interested him 

 throughout life. 



Like many young medical students of those 

 days, he went to Europe to study, and, as the 

 voyage was apt to run into two months, the 

 medical adventurer had time to read and plan his 

 life there. 



Except for a few months in London, Barton 

 stayed the whole of two years in Edinburgh, and 

 while there made his first venture in authorship 

 with his Observations on Some Parts of Natural 

 History, to which is prefixed an account of some 

 considerable vestiges of an ancient date which 

 have been discovered in different parts of North 

 America (1787). 



He left Edinburgh before graduating, and 

 took his M. D. at Gottingen. His reasons for not 

 taking it at Edinburgh are set forth in a letter to 

 his brother, written in London in 1789 in which 

 he states that he preferred getting his diploma 

 from Gottingen because he was dissatisfied with 

 the discourteous manner in which two of the pro- 

 fessors at the University of Edinburgh had 

 treated him. However, he did receive several 

 honors, the membership of the Royal Society of 

 Edinburgh, and an honorary premium from that 

 society for his dissertation on Hyoscyamus Niger, 

 the Harveian prize, consisting of a superb quarto 

 edition of the works of William Harvey. 



