406 Memoir of Dr. Thomas Young. 



its extent, Young was quite destitute of confidence at the 

 sick bed. Then the vexatious effects which might eventu- 

 ally result from the action of the best medicine recom- 

 mended being presented at once to his mind, appeared to 

 him to balance the favourable chances which should be ex- 

 pected, and made him undecided ; doubtless a natural 

 feeling, but one which people never relish. The same 

 timidity was displayed in all the medical works of Young. 

 This man, so remarkably distinguished for the boldness of 

 his scientific views, could only give on this science simple 

 catalogues of facts. He was scarcely convinced with the 

 goodness of his thesis, either when he attacked the cele- 

 brated Dr. Radcliffe, whose whole secret, in a most bril- 

 liant and successful practice, as he himself declared, was 

 to employ contrary remedies, or when he contended with 

 Dr. Brown, who found himself, said he, under the dis- 

 agreeable necessity of acknowledging, from the evidence of 

 the official documents of an hospital under the care of 

 justly celebrated physicians, that the majority of fevers, 

 when left to themselves, are neither more severe, nor of 

 longer duration, than when they are treated by the best 

 methods. 



In 1818, Young having been appointed Secretary to the 

 Board of Longitude, gave up almost entirely the practice 

 of medicine, in order to devote the most careful attention 

 to the celebrated periodical work called the Nautical Al- 

 manac. After this period, the journal of the Royal Insti- 

 tution contained, quarterly, numerous dissertations upon 

 the most important problems of navigation and astronomy. 

 A volume, entitled Illustrations of the Mecanique Celeste of 

 Laplace; a philosophical dissertation on the Tides, fully 

 attested that Young did not consider his situation a sine- 

 cure. In this employment, however, there was presented 

 to him one inexhaustible source of disgust. The Nautical 

 Almanac had hitherto been a work exclusively devoted to 

 the sea service. Some individuals requested that it should 

 constitute a complete astronomical ephemeris. The Board 

 of Longitude not having appeared to decide in favour of 

 the projected change, was suddenly exposed to the most 

 violent attacks. The journals of every description, Whig 

 or Tory, took part in the discussion. Nothing was seen in 



