Henry Burton was born in London, the son of John Burton, architect, and educated at Tonbridge School and Caius College, Cambridge. After taking the M.B. degree in 1826, he practised in London. In 1828 he was appointed assistant physician to St. Thomas’s Hospital, where he became subsequently lecturer on chemistry and materia medica and, finally, senior physician. He was a Censor of the Royal College of Physicians in 1838. His writings included a paper On the Effect of Lead on the Gums (1840). Burton was the first to point out that blue discoloration of the gums ("Burton’s line") was a sign of lead poisoning.

G H Brown

[Biog.Hist.of Caius College, ii, 181; Parsons, iii, 115; London Medical Gazette, 1849, xliv, 307]