Call no.
10a/5
Acc. 51372
(Hirsch
55)
03/22/1910
Betton, Samuel, 1786-1850.
Samuel Betton’s notes on Dr. Barton’s lectures, 1803-4.
1 v.
Biography
Samuel Betton, Jr. was born in 1786. He graduated from the Medical Department of
the University of Pennsylvania in 1808 and set up his home and private practice
in Germantown, Pa. He married Mary Forrest, with whom he had a son, Thomas
Forrest Betton. Father and son together amassed a sizable medical library, which
was donated to the College of Physicians in 1857. Betton died in Germantown on
June 9, 1850.
Benjamin Smith Barton, was born February 10, 1766, in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
At 14, Barton became a medical student at the College of Philadelphia and later
went to Europe in 1786 to futher his studies at the University of Edinburgh.
Barton returned to Philadelphia without a medical degree in 1789 and set up
private practice. In 1796 he received an honorary M.D. from the Christian-Albrechts
University in Kiel, Germany. From 1789-1815, he served as professor of natural
history and botany at the College of Philadelphia, which was united with the
University of Pennsylvania in 1791. He later became professor of materia medica
and professor of the theory and practice of medicine in 1813. Barton wrote
extensively on the topics of natural history, botany, paleontology, etymology
and medicine. He penned the first basic American textbook on botany, Elements
of Botany, in 1803. In 1805 he founded and edited the Philadelphia
Medical and Physical Journal. As a professional advocate, Barton was
extremely active in the American Philosophical Society, the Philadelphia Linnean
Society, and the Philadelphia Medical Society, serving as its president (1815).
Barton was elected a Fellow of the College of Physicians in 1790. On December
19, 1815, Barton died.
Scope and Contents
One volume (496 leaves) of notes on lectures on materia medica delivered by
Benjamin S. Barton at the University of Pennsylvania from 1803-1804.
Provenance
With bookplates of Thomas F. Betton, M.D. Donated to the College of Physicians
by T.F. Betton in his father’s memory in 1857.
1803-1804.
1 v.
07/05/2000
lg