^4> Biographical Memoir of Dr Thomas Youtig. 



of him who exhibits il. The same timidity is exhibited in all 

 the works which Dr Young wrote on medical subjects. This 

 «ian, so eminently remarkable for the boldness of his scientific 

 views, now gave only simple catalogues of facts. He seemed 

 scarcely convinced of the truth of his position, whether, when 

 he attacked the celebrated Dr Radcliffe, whose only secret, in 

 the most brilliant and successful practice, had been, as he him- 

 self declared, to employ the remedies which would check the 

 ■symptoms ; or, where he combated Dr Brown, who had found 

 himself, he remarked, under the disagreeable necessity of recog- 

 nizing, and that according to official documents of an hospital 

 confided to the care of justly celebrated physicians, that, upon 

 the whole, those fevers which are left to their natural course, are 

 neither more severe, nor of longer continuance, than those which 

 are treated with the most consummate art. 



In the year 1818, Dr Young having been appointed Secre- 

 tary of the Board of Longitude, almost entirely abandoned the 

 practice of medicine, that he might devote himself to the minute 

 superintendence of the celebrated periodical, known under the 

 name of the Nautical Almanac. From this epoch, the Jour- 

 nal of the Royal Institution gave, every three months, nume- 

 rous dissertations upon the most important problems of the 

 nautical art, and on astronomy. A volume, entitled " Illustra- 

 tions of' the Mecanique Celeste of Laplace ^ and a learned dis- 

 sertation upon the Tides ^ would have fully attested that Dr 

 Young did not consider the employment he had recently ac- 

 cepted as a sinecure. And, notwithstanding, this situation was 

 to him a source of endless disgust. The Nautical Almanac 

 had been, from its origin, a work exclusively intended for the 

 service of the Navy. Some individuals insisted that it should 

 also be made a complete astronomical ephemeris. The Board 

 of Longitude, right or wrong, not having appeared particularly 

 to favour the projected change, was speedily made the object of 

 the most violent attacks. Journals of every colour. Whig and 

 Tory, engaged in the discussion. There was no longer to be 

 found in the union of Davy, WoUaston, Young, Herschel, Ka- 

 ter, and Pond, any thing else than an assemblage of individuals 

 (I quote literally), " who were under Beotian irifluence ^ the 

 Nautical Almanac, formerly so famous, was become an object 



