YOUNG, THOMAS, M.D., one of the most ingenious and original philosophers of this century, and almost as eminent for his scholarship and his linguistic discoveries as for his contributions to science, was born at Milverton, in Somersetshire, on June 13, 1773. His parents, Thomas and Sarah Young, were Quakers of the strictest sect; and Young had the impression that the peculiar doctrines of the Quakers had a favorable influence upon his character and career. In particular, he connected with the Quaker doctrine of divine suggestion the perseverance with which he followed up any pursuit in which he engaged, to which he, like Buffon, was disposed to attribute all the discoveries which his genius enabled him to make. Wonderful stories of his youthful precocity have been recorded, and they seem to have more truth in them than such stories usually have. In 1780 he was sent to a boarding-school at Stapleton, near Bristol, where he remained two years; he was afterward put to school at Compton, in Dorsetshire, kept by a Mr. Thompson, who appears to have been an able and judicious teacher. When he left Compton, in his 14th year, besides having a great knowledge, for his age, of Greek and Latin and of mathematics, he had learned French and Italian, and, without any tuition, had made considerable progress in Hebrew, Persic, and Arabic. In 1787 he went to live with Mr. David Barclay, of Youngsbury, near Ware, in Hertfordshire, an eminent member of the society of Friends, partly as the fellow-pupil, partly as the tutor, of that gentleman's grandson, Hudson Gurney. A Mr. Hodgkin was called in to assist the studies of the two lads, but Young soon proved to be superior in acquirements to his instructor, and virtually the three became fellow-students. Mr. Hodgkin published in 1793 a work entitled Calligraphia Grceca, which he dedicated to Young. Young con. tinned' to live with Mr. Barclay till 1792, spending the summer months in Hertfordshire and the winter in London, studying Greek and Latin, the modern languages, the oriental as well as the European, the higher mathematics, and natural philosophy, and, by way of amusement, botany and zoology. He taught himself• to write Latin with
fluency and elegance, and to write Greek verses, which received the commendation of some of the best judges of the time. During the winters of 1790 and 1791 he attended lectures on chemistry in London. It may be remarked that neither then nor at any subsequent time did he show much disposition toward experimenting; his bias seems to have been toward the pure rather than the observational sciences.
Toward the end of 1792, under the advice of Dr. Brocklesby, an eminent London physician, his mother's uncle, who had been greatly impressed by his abilities and at tainments, he began to study medicine, and he attended medical lectures for two years in the schools of London, and afterward for a year at the university of Edinburgh. After going to Edinburgh, Young gave up the Quaker dress and the more inconvenient of the Quaker customs; he took lessons in music and dancing, mixed freely in society, and occasionally went to the theater. These changes, though not intended to go fur ther, eventually led to his complete estrangement from the society of Friends. From Edinburgh he went to the German university of Gottingen, from which, after nine months' residence, he got the degree of doctor of medicine. He continued upward of a year longer in Germany, and visited various medical schools, returning to England in 1797. At that time the membership of the college of physicians was restricted to graduates of Oxford and Cambridge, and to qualify himself for it Young, on his re-. turn, entered as a fellow-commoner at Emmanuel college, Cambridge, at which lie remained until he took his degree in 1799. In the year 1800, having become a member of the college of physicians, he took up his residence in London, and began to practice as a physician. He took the degree of M.B. at Cambridge, in 1803, and that of M.D. in 1807. His uncle, Brockelsby, who died in 1797, had left him £10,000, besides his house in London, with his furniture, library, and collection of pictures, so that he was in pos session of a moderate competency.