BARTON, BENJAMIN SMITH American naturalist, was born at Lancaster, Pa., in 1766. When only 24 years old he was appointed to a professorship of natural history and botany at the College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania—probably the first position of its kind in any American college. Later he became professor of materia medica (1795) and successor to Dr. Benjamin Rush in the chair of prac tical medicine (1813).
Having an ardent thirst for literary fame as well as wide scien tific knowledge, he wrote books on such diverse subjects as the natural history of Pennsylvania, the disease of goitre, the Fas cinating Faculty Which Has Been Ascribed to the Rattlesnake and Other North American Serpents, the honey-bee, the stimulant effects of camphor on vegetables, and numerous other subjects ir, natural history, botany and materia medica, the best known being his Elements of Botany (1803) . In 1802 he was chosen president of the American Philosophical Society and was a member of hon orary scientific societies in Moscow, London, Scotland and Den mark. He died in Philadelphia, Dec. 19, 1815.
See Pioneers of Science in America, edited by W. J. Youmans (1896).