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CHRISTIAN

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Originally appearing in Volume V28, Page 940 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION with his medical practice. In the previous See also:

year he was appointed See also:foreign secretary of the Royal Society, of which he had. been elected a See also:fellow in 1794. In 181r he became physician to St See also:George's See also:Hospital, and in 1814 he served on a See also:committee appointed to consider the dangers involved by the See also:general introduction of See also:gas into See also:London. In 1816 he was secretary of a See also:commission charged with ascertaining the length of the seconds pendulum, and in 1818 he became secretary to the See also:Board of See also:Longitude and See also:superintendent of the Nautical See also:Almanac. A few years before his See also:death he became interested in See also:life assurance, and in 1827 he was chosen one of the eight foreign associates of the See also:French See also:Academy of Sciences. He died in London on the loth of May 1829. See also:Young is perhaps best known for his See also:work in See also:physical See also:optics, as the author of a remarkable See also:series of researches which did much to establish the undulatory theory of See also:light, and as the discoverer of the interference of light (see INTERFERENCE). He has also been called the founder of physiological optics. In 1793 he explained the mode in which the See also:eye accommodates itself to See also:vision at different distances as depending on See also:change of the curvature of the crystalline See also:lens; in 18o1 he described the defect known as astigmatism; and in his Lectures he put forward the See also:hypothesis, afterwards See also:developed by H. von See also:Helmholtz, that See also:colour See also:perception depends on the presence in the retina of three kinds of See also:nerve See also:fibres which See also:respond respectively to red, See also:green and See also:violet light. In See also:physiology he made an important contribution to haemadynamics in the Croonian lecture for r8o8 on the " Functions of the See also:Heart and See also:Arteries," and his medical writings included An Introduction to Medical Literature, including a See also:System of See also:Practical See also:Nosology (1813) and A Practical and See also:Historical See also:Treatise on Consumptive Diseases (1815). In another See also:field of See also:research, he was one of the first successful workers at the decipherment of See also:Egyptian hieroglyphic. See also:inscriptions; by 1814 he had completely translated the enchorial (See also:demotic) See also:text of the See also:Rosetta See also:stone, and a few years Iater had made considerable progress towards an understanding of the hieroglyphic See also:alphabet (see See also:EGYPT, § See also:Language and See also:Writing). In 1823 he published an See also:Account of the See also:Recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphic Literature and Egyptian Antiquities.

Some of his conclusions appeared in the famous See also:

article of Egypt which in 1818 he wrote for the See also:Encyclopaedia Britannica. His See also:works were collected, with a Life by G. See also:Peacock, in 1855.

End of Article: CHRISTIAN

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