YOUNG AS A PHYSICIAN. 333 



rival galloping on the backs of two horses with all the 

 confidence of an equestrian by profession. 



In England, a physician, if he does not wish to lose 

 the confidence of the public, ought to abstain from occu- 

 pying himself with any scientific or literary research 

 which may be thought foreign to the art of curing dis- 

 eases. Young for a long time did homage to this preju- 

 dice. His writings appeared under an anonymous veil. 

 This veil, it is true, was very transparent. Two con- 

 secutive letters of a certain Latin motto served succes- 

 sively in regular order as the signature to each memoir. 

 But Young communicated the three Latin words to all 

 his friends both in his own country and abroad, without 

 enjoining secrecy on any one. 



Besides, who could be ignorant that the distinguished 

 author of the theory of interferences was the Foreign 

 Secretary of the Royal Society of London ; that he gave, 

 in the Theatre of the Royal Institution, a course of lec- 

 tures on mathematical physics ; that, associated with 

 Sir H. Davy, he published a journal of the sciences, 

 &c. ? and moreover, we must say that his anonymous 

 disguise was not rigorously observed even in his smaller 

 memoirs, and on important occasions, when, for instance, 

 in 1807, the two volumes in quarto appeared of eight 

 hundred or nine hundred pages each, in which all 

 branches of natural philosophy were treated in a manner 

 so new and profound, the self-love of the author made 

 him forget the interests of the physician, and the name 

 of Young in large letters replaced the two small Italics 

 whose series was then terminated, and which would 

 have figured in a rather ridiculous manner in the title- 



o 



page of this colossal work. 

 Young had not then, as a physician, either in London 



