72 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



ous risks by overtasking the eye, and in after years he 

 was known to repeat this imprudence, but he never 

 again had to put himself under an oculist's care. 

 When his malady threatened to recur he knew how 

 to arrest its progress, and with firmer general health 

 he became much less liable to attack. 



Mr. Youmans's career as a scientific lecturer now 

 began. His first lecture was the beginning of a series 

 on the relations of organic life to the atmosphere. It 

 was illustrated with chemical apparatus, and was given' 

 in Dr. Elliott's commodious office to an audience which 

 filled the room, including a number of young ladies 

 from fashionable uptown schools. Probably no lecturer 

 ever faced his first audience without some trepida- 

 tion, and Youmans had not the mainstay and refuge 

 afforded by a manuscript, for his sight was never good 

 enough to make such an aid available for his lectures. 

 At first the right words were slow in finding their 

 way to those ready lips, and his friends were begin- 

 ning to grow anxious, when all at once a happy acci- 

 dent broke the spell. He was remarking upon the 

 characteristic instability of nitrogen, and pointing to a 

 jar of that gas on the table before him, when some 

 fidgety movement of his knocked the jar off the table. 

 He improved the occasion with one of his quaint bons 

 mots ; and, as there is nothing that greases the wheels 

 of life like a laugh, the lecture went on to a success- 

 ful close. At the end of the series a general wish 

 was expressed that the lectures should be repeated 

 in a larger audience-room. Among his first topics 

 were the chemistry of organized bodies, of vegetable 

 growth, of food and digestion. He subsequently dis- 

 cussed the sources and nature of alcohol, and its 

 effect on the human system. Then came a series on 



