William P.C. Barton
Encyclopedia
History
Barton was born on 17 November 1786, in Philadelphia, PA. His father William BartonWilliam Barton (heraldist)
William Barton was a Pennsylvania lawyer, scholar, and the designer of the Great Seal of the United States.- Family and Education :...
, a lawyer, was the designer of the Great Seal of the United States
Great Seal of the United States
The Great Seal of the United States is used to authenticate certain documents issued by the United States federal government. The phrase is used both for the physical seal itself , and more generally for the design impressed upon it...
. His uncle, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815) was an eminent medical botanist and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society.
Education
As was customary for the era, Barton pursued a classical education at Princeton UniversityPrinceton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
. The curriculum included Aristotelian logic, and study of the Greek and Latin languages. Barton began studying medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
The Perelman School of Medicine , formerly the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was founded in 1765, making it the oldest American medical school. As part of the University of Pennsylvania, it is located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is widely...
in 1805 under his uncle, Benjamin Smith Barton, who was a renowned botanist and author of the first American text book on botanical science. In these years of study, William Barton’s interest in botany
Botany
Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...
and the natural sciences grew into a lifelong passion.
In 1808, upon publication of A Dissertation on Chymical Properties and Exhilarating Effects of Nitrous Oxide Gas and Its Application to Pneumatick Medicine, Barton received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania. Complete with an illustration of a giddy man breathing in “laughing gas” from a sheep’s bladder, the treatise had great impact on scientific thought when nitrous oxide experiments were “generally derided as extravagant and imaginary.”
U.S. Naval Surgeon
At the age of 23, Barton chose to enter the U.S. Navy as a surgeon. He received his commission on 10 April 1809, and less than week later commissioned the famous Thomas Sully to paint his portrait for a sum of $50. This painting, now in the Wilstach Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of ArtPhiladelphia Museum of Art
The Philadelphia Museum of Art is among the largest art museums in the United States. It is located at the west end of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia's Fairmount Park. The Museum was established in 1876 in conjunction with the Centennial Exposition of the same year...
, shows a young Barton in uniform - a blue coat with gold braid, and hands gloved. Barton wrote, “I was overwhelmed with the difficulties I had to encounter in the performance of professional duties, where every species of inconvenience and disadvantage that can be imagined was opposed to the exertions of the surgeon.” Ultimately, Barton was not one to accept inadequacies, but rather to fight for reform.
Barton fought to tighten the controls of shipboard medical supplies. He called for the introduction of lemons and limes aboard Navy ships long before the U.S. Navy accepted the importance of an antiscorbutic treatment for vitamin C deficiency or scurvy. Barton went as far as to send a bottle of lime juice to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton
Paul Hamilton
Paul Hamilton was the 3rd United States Secretary of the Navy, from 1809 to 1813.Paul Hamilton was born in Saint Paul's Parish, South Carolina, on October 16, 1762. He left school at the age of sixteen due to financial problems...
with the instructions to drink it in the form of lemonade. His outspoken manner angered many of his colleagues. Barton, of necessity, became familiar with the administration of hospitals.
In February, 1811, Congress passed an act establishing naval hospitals. Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton later asked Barton to compose a set of regulations for governing these hospitals. Barton was well aware of the shortcomings in Navy medical care. Shipboard facilities were primitive, and there were no permanent hospitals ashore, only temporary facilities in Navy yards.
Barton began by drafting rules for governing naval hospitals. In 1812, the Navy Department submitted them to Congress. "Each hospital accommodating at least one hundred men should maintain a staff including a surgeon, who must be a college or university graduate; two surgeon's mates; a steward; a matron; a wardmaster; four permanent nurses; and a variety of servants." Not satisfied with the hastily drafted suggestions, Barton expanded his theories in a treatise published in 1814.
He was the first to promote the idea of employing female nurses in the U.S. Navy. He described the "matron's characteristics: she should be "discreet ... reputable ... capable ... neat, cleanly, and tidy in her dress, and urbane and tender in her deportment." She would supervise the nurses and other attendants as well as those working in the laundry, larder, and kitchen, but her main function was to ensure that patients were clean, well-fed, and comfortable.
By 1824, Barton served on the first board to examine candidates for the Navy's medical service. The intent of the board was to examine Surgeon's Mates, "preparatory to their promotion to the rank of Surgeons." The board was also authorized to examine applicants for Commissions as Surgeons' Mates and report upon their fitness.
In 1830 he became the commanding officer at Naval Hospital Norfolk, VA. He was involved in the development of the Philadelphia Naval Hospital when it was located in the Naval Asylum. Today, this gothic structure, that also served as the first home of the U.S. Naval Academy, stands in Grays Ferry
Grays Ferry, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Grays Ferry, also known as Gray's Ferry, is a neighborhood in South Philadelphia bounded by 25th Street on the east, the Schuylkill River on the west, Vare Avenue on the south, and Grays Ferry Avenue on the north. The section of this neighborhood west of 34th Street is also known as The Forgotten...
.
President John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
appointed Barton to the office of first head of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery on 2 September 1842. (The post of Navy Surgeon General was created in March 1871). His time as Chief clerk was active, but short. Among his recommendations were the adoption of a supply table so that drugs and medical supplies could be properly procured and accounted for; the abolition of a venereal fee; uniform standards for recruits; higher professional standards for Navy physicians; standardizations and administrations of naval hospitals; and strict control over the use of liquor on board ships. He was a vehement prohibitionist, and had a “liquor circular” pasted on boxes of whisky identifying the contents as medical supplies which required stringent accounting, a step which was not popular in the fleet.
Published works
His A Treatise Containing a Plan for the Internal Organization and Government of Marine Hospitals in the United States: Together with A Scheme for Amending and Systematizing the Medical Department of the United States Navy (1814) contained recommendations of reform for the already new Navy hospital system. He urged that U.S. Navy hospitals should be modeled after British medical facilities. One of his many recommendations recommended that all hospital property should be marked “U.S. Naval Hospital” to prevent theft. The mere fact of the book "having achieved a second edition three years later, is an indication of the estimation in which it was held. It contained a fund of information collected from various sources, both at home and abroad, and revealed an originality of thought and expression which stamped its author as far in advance of the times.Professor of medical botany and Dean of Jefferson Medical College
Much of Barton’s time was dedicated to the teaching of Materia MedicaMateria medica
Materia medica is a Latin medical term for the body of collected knowledge about the therapeutic properties of any substance used for healing . The term 'materia medica' derived from the title of a work by the Ancient Greek physician Pedanius Dioscorides in the 1st century AD, De materia medica libre...
, or medical botany, at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine
The Perelman School of Medicine , formerly the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, was founded in 1765, making it the oldest American medical school. As part of the University of Pennsylvania, it is located in the University City section of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is widely...
and Thomas Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University is a private health sciences university in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. The university consists of six constituent colleges and schools, Jefferson Medical College, Jefferson College of Graduate Studies, Jefferson School of Health...
. One of his prominent students was Dr. Samuel D. Gross
Samuel D. Gross
Samuel David Gross was an American academic trauma surgeon. Surgeon biographer Isaac Minis Hays called Gross "The Nestor of American Surgery." He is immortalized in Thomas Eakins' The Gross Clinic, , perhaps the most important American painting of the nineteenth century.-Early life and...
, later immortalized in the Thomas Eakins
Thomas Eakins
Thomas Cowperthwait Eakins was an American realist painter, photographer, sculptor, and fine arts educator...
painting The Gross Clinic (1876). Gross portrayed his old teacher as a colorful character in a speech delivered to Alumni Association of Thomas Jefferson Medical College
Thomas Jefferson University
Thomas Jefferson University is a private health sciences university in Center City, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the United States. The university consists of six constituent colleges and schools, Jefferson Medical College, Jefferson College of Graduate Studies, Jefferson School of Health...
on 11 March 1871. From 1828-1829, he also served as the Dean of Jefferson Medical College.
Personal life
His brother was John Rhea BartonJohn Rhea Barton
John Rhea Barton was an American orthopedic surgeon remembered for describing Barton's fracture.- Biography :...
(1796-1871), the originator of corrective osteotomy for joint ankylosis. He invented both the "Barton bandage" (a figure eight bandage that provides support below and anterior to the lower jaw), and Barton forceps (obstetrical forceps with one fixed, curved blade and lunged anterior blade for application to a high transverse position of the head). The Barton Collection at Boston Public Library
Boston Public Library
The Boston Public Library is a municipal public library system in Boston, Massachusetts, United States. It was the first publicly supported municipal library in the United States, the first large library open to the public in the United States, and the first public library to allow people to...
is named after Thomas Pennant Barton (1803–1869), who was William Barton’s first cousin. It comprises one of largest and most valuable Shakespeare collections in the world.
Barton was married to Esther Sergeant the grand daughter of David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse
David Rittenhouse was a renowned American astronomer, inventor, clockmaker, mathematician, surveyor, scientific instrument craftsman and public official...
, the great American astronomer and President of the American Philosophical Society. Esther Barton colored many of Dr. Barton’s botanical drawings.
He died on March 3, 1856 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Miscellaneous
- In 1803, before his famous expedition, Meriwether LewisMeriwether LewisMeriwether Lewis was an American explorer, soldier, and public administrator, best known for his role as the leader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition also known as the Corps of Discovery, with William Clark...
went to Philadelphia and met with Benjamin Smith Barton. Barton helped to increase Lewis’ botanical knowledge and collection skills which obviously worked. Lewis returned with 226 plants. They are preserved today at the Lewis and Clark Herbarium at the Academy of Sciences in Philadelphia. - The Philadelphia Botanical Club publishes a journal named after Dr. Barton called the Bartonia. The publication publishes articles about original research in plant systematics, plant ecology, and plant conservation biology. For more information see Bartonia
Barton Bibliography
- A Dissertation on Chymical Properties and Exhilarating Effects of Nitrous Oxide Gas and Its Application to Pneumatick Medicine (1808)
- A Treatise Containing a Plan for the Internal Organization and Government of Marine Hospitals in the United States: Together with A Scheme for Amending and Systematizing the Medical Department of the United States Navy (1814)
- Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States (1817)
- Compedium Florae Philadelphicae (1818)
- A Flora of North America (1821)
- Hints for Medical Officers Cruising in the West Indies (1830)
- A Polemical Remonstrance Against the Project of Creating the New Office of Surgeon General in the Navy of the United States (1838)