Henry Burton (physician)

Henry Burton
FRCP M.D. M.L. M.D. B.S.
Born(1799-02-27)27 February 1799
Died10 August 1849(1849-08-10) (aged 50)
EducationTonbridge School
Alma materGonville and Caius College, Cambridge, St Bartholomew's Hospital
OccupationsPhysician, chemist
Known forBurton line
Spouse
Mary Elizabeth Poulton
​
​
(m. 1826)​
Parents
Relatives

Henry Burton FRCP (27 February 1799 – 10 August 1849) was a British physician and chemist, who identified that blue discolouration of gums, the eponymous Burton line, was a symptom of lead poisoning.

Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge

Family

Henry Burton was a son of the pre-eminent London property developer James Burton and Elizabeth Westley (1761 – 1837).[1][2] He was a brother of the gunpowder-manufacturer William Ford Burton, of the Egyptologist, James Burton, and of the architect Decimus Burton.[1][2]

As the Cambridge Alumni Database identifies,[3] some sources, including the entry for Henry Burton in the Royal College of Physicians's Lives of the Fellows,[4] incorrectly state that Henry Burton was the son of one ‘John Burton’. This is incorrect: he was the son of the aforementioned London property developer James Burton.[3][2][5]

His paternal great-great grandparents were The Rev. James Haliburton (1681 – 1756) and Margaret Eliott, who was the daughter of Sir William Eliott, 2nd Baronet, and the aunt of George Augustus Eliott, 1st Baron Heathfield.[5] Henry was descended from John Haliburton (1573–1627), from whom Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet traced maternal descent.[2]

He was a cousin of the Canadian author and British MP Thomas Chandler Haliburton:[6] and thereby of the Canada First founder Robert Grant Haliburton and the civil servant Arthur Lawrence Haliburton, 1st Baron Haliburton.[6][7]

Career

Henry was educated at Tonbridge School;[2] and at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, at which he received the degrees M.B., M.L., M.D., B.S.,[3][4] and at St Bartholomew's Hospital.[3]

He served on the 98-gun HMS Boyne before he entered the Gunpowder Office.[7]

In September 1825, he became Professor of Chemistry at St Thomas' Hospital,[3][4][2] where he became Senior Physician. He became a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians in 1832.[3] He was appointed Censor of the Royal College of Physicians in 1838 and Consiliarius in 1843.[3][4] He is famous for his discovery that a blue line on the gums, the eponymous Burton line, was a symptom of lead poisoning.[4][8][9]

Marriage

Henry Burton married Mary Elizabeth, who was the daughter of William Poulton of Maidenhead, at St. George's, Bloomsbury, in 1826.[5] She died in 1829, without issue, and Henry did not remarry.[7][5] Henry lived at 41 Jermyn Street, London,[3] and 58 Marina, St. Leonard's-on-Sea.[7][5]

References

  1. 1 2 "James Burton [Haliburton], Oxford Dictionary of National Biography". Archived from the original on 29 March 2019. Retrieved 20 June 2016.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Whitbourn, Philip (2003). Decimus Burton, Esquire: Architect and Gentleman (1800 - 1881). Royal Tunbridge Wells Civic Society. p. 9. ISBN 978-0-9545343-0-1.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 "Burton, Henry (BRTN821H)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 "Royal College of Physicians, Lives of the Fellows: Munk's Roll, Volume IV, p.8, Henry Burton". Royal College of Physicians. Archived from the original on 7 March 2018. Retrieved 17 March 2017.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 "Pedigree of Henry Burton, The Weald Archives". Archived from the original on 18 June 2018. Retrieved 18 June 2018.
  6. 1 2 Davies, Richard A. (2005). Inventing Sam Slick: A Biography of Thomas Chandler Haliburton. University of Toronto Press. pp. 71–73.
  7. 1 2 3 4 Burton, James (1783–1811). "The Diary of James Burton". The National Archives. Retrieved 18 June 2018 – via Hastings Museum and Art Gallery.
  8. ↑ Riva MA, Lafranconi A, D'Orso MI, Cesana G (2012). "Lead Poisoning: Historical Aspects of a Paradigmatic Occupational and Environmental Disease". Saf Health Work. 3 (1): 11–6. doi:10.5491/SHAW.2012.3.1.11. PMC 3430923. PMID 22953225.
  9. ↑ Pearce J.M.S. (2007). "Burton's line in lead poisoning". Eur. Neurol. 57 (2): 118–119. doi:10.1159/000098100. PMID 17179719. Retrieved 21 March 2009.
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