Description

Daniel Garrison Brinton (1837-1899), was an American archaeologist and ethnologist. During the American Civil War, he was a surgeon in the Union army, acting during 1864-1865 as surgeonin- charge of the U. S. Army general hospital at Quincy, Illinois. After the war, Brinton practiced medicine in West Chester, Pennsylvania for several years; was the editor of a weekly periodical - the Medical and Surgical Reporter, in Philadelphia from 1874 to 1887; became professor of ethnology and archaeology in the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia in 1884; and was professor of American linguistics and archaeology in the University of Pennsylvania from 1886 until his death. His works include: The Myths of the New World (1868), The Religious Sentiment (1876), American Hero-Myths (1882), Aboriginal American Authors (1883), The Lenape and Their Legends (1885), The Annals of the Cakchiquels (1885), Ancient Nahuatl Poetry (1887), The Pursuit of Happiness (1893), A Primer of Mayan Hieroglyphics (1895) and Religions of Primitive People (1897). In addition, he edited and published a Library of American Aboriginal Literature (8 vols. 1882-1890), a valuable contribution to the science of anthropology in America.