William Paul Crillon Barton (November 17, 1786 – March 27, 1856), was a medical botanist, physician, professor, naval surgeon, and botanical illustrator.

His uncle, Benjamin Smith Barton (1766–1815) was an eminent medical botanist and vice-president of the American Philosophical Society.

[2] As was customary for the era, Barton pursued a classical education at Princeton University, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1805.

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.”[4] At the age of 23, Barton chose to enter the U.S. Navy as a surgeon.

This painting, now in the Wilstach Collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, shows a young Barton in uniform – a blue coat with gold braid, and hands gloved.

[6] Barton went as far as to send a bottle of lime juice to the Secretary of the Navy Paul Hamilton with the instructions to drink it in the form of lemonade.

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.

President John Tyler appointed Barton to the office of first head of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery on September 2, 1842.

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.

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.

Gross portrayed his old teacher as a colorful character in a speech delivered to Alumni Association of Thomas Jefferson Medical College on March 11, 1871.