Author: Dr. Thomas Young
Date: July 20, 1767
To Philo Physic.
To what degree of distraction you will at last arrive appears as hard to guess, as what ‘left-handed destiny’ first set you on scribbling! Could any man out of bedlam have indulged the fancy of setting his prevailing adversary on so ridiculous a fairy-chase? It is your’s to prove your calumny, and prove it you shall or sink under the shame of it! Your printer cannot deny he knows you, and therefore cannot secrete you – Your presumption of impunity has transported you beyond all the bounds ever set to any persons in civil society – You can call a man’s capacity in question down to the very alphabet, and slink out like a scalded puppy when called upon to vindicate your assertions – You can coin stories of sheepskins and gall-bladders, and affirm them in the prints with all the impudence of a jesuit – You can invade the silent grave, tear up the peaceful dead, and fill the mouth with lies, that living detested a falshood – You can without remorse once and again assail, and shake to the foundation, the shatter’d remains of life, already sunk in grief, to such extreme degree, as might draw tears from the furies and immunity from a basilisk – Shudder for your villainy! be ashamed that such an instance of inhospitality, cruelty and cowardice should exist in your country! What security has a man whose living depends on his character if every envious lurking savage, from an impenetrable thicket, may wound it at pleasure? Had you signed your real name, or would at any rate appear in day light to bear the returns of your own turpitude, I would wish no other or further satisfaction. But since this is not the case, I shall for future protection, if further molested, repose myself on the laws of my country, the wisdom and justice of a people among whom my conduct, in the very instance for which I am abused, will appear not only innocent, but judicious and meritorious.
Tho’s Young.
Source: Boston Evening-Post, July 20, 1767, issue 1661, p. 2. See related all in Boston Gazette by Philo Physic: May 25, 1767; June 8, 1767; June 22, 1767; and July 27, 1767
Commentary: It would be an understatement to assert that Dr. Thomas Young was irritated at Joseph Warren’s pseudonymous Philo Physic. Warren had taken Dr. Miles Whitworth’s side in a very public malpractice controversy, playing out over months, during 1767. The Boston Gazette had for months printed the anti-Young letters, while the rival Boston Evening-Post hosted Dr. Young’s letters and his generally ineffective counter-attacks.
Curiously, Warren’s account books show that Loyalist Lieutenant Governor Thomas Hutchinson was Warren’s patient during this period. Both Drs. Thomas Young and Joseph Warren were active Whig Boston Sons of Liberty by late in 1767. Dr. Miles Whitworth later wrote about the Boston Tea crisis of 1773 from a decidedly Loyalist perspective. I infer that a young Dr. Joseph Warren in mid-1767 could distinguish professional medical issues from politically partisan ones by aligning with Whitworth in stinging public criticism of Thomas Young’s medical practice.
By 1769 Warren and Young had patched up their differences. While coordinating their Patriot and medical activities by the time of the Tea Crisis, it is hard to imagine them ever becoming fast friends following such public acrimony between them during 1767.
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