American Medical Biographies/Barton, William Paul Crillon

1904468American Medical Biographies — Barton, William Paul Crillon1920Albert Allemann

Barton, William Paul Crillon (1786–1856)

William Paul Crillon Barton, a navy surgeon, was descended from a distinguished family of physicians of Philadelphia. He was born in Philadelphia, November 17, 1786. He graduated A. B. at the College of New Jersey (Princeton) in 1805 and M. D. at the University of Pennsylvania in 1808 and entered the navy as assistant surgeon in the following year. While in college each member of the class assumed the name of some celebrated man. Barton took that of Count Paul Crillon. A man of untiring energy, with a high sense of duty, the Medical Department of the Navy owes to him some most valuable reforms. He held the position of professor of botany in the University of Pennsylvania from 1816 to 1828, and professor of materia medica and botany in the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, from 1828 to 1830. He was also a writer of ability and a noted botanist. Among his more valuable writings may be mentioned: "A Treatise containing a Plan for the Organization and Government of Marine Hospitals," 1814; "Vegetable Materia Medica of the United States," 1818; "Compendium Floræ Philadelphiæ," 1818; "A Flora of North America" (with colored plates), 1821.

In 1842 Barton was appointed chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery of the Navy Department, a position he held until 1844 when he was retired. He died in Philadelphia, the city of his birth, March 27, 1856. His bust in life size is shown in the Army Medical Museum at Washington.

N. Y. Jour. Med., 1856, 3. s., vol. i, 144.
Jour. Asso., Mil. Surgs., Carlisle, Pa., 1901–2, vol. x (Bradley).