Peter Mark Roget – The MD who Changed Literature

Peter Mark Roget is best known as the creator of the Thesaurus — for which all writers have been grateful since it’s original publication in 1852.  It is arguably the most important contribution to literature in the past 160 years.

Interestingly, Roget didn’t begin this important philogical work until he was in his seventies.

Prior to that, Roget’s talents were in the scientific realm.  He was a physician, an MD interested in improving public sanitation as well as bolstering medical education.  He wrote numerous papers on physiology and health.  He discovered the retina’s capacity for seeing a fast-moving “series of still images as a continuous picture” — the phenomenon that allows us to watch movies.    He  also developed the “log-log scale” for the slide rule.

Besides being a great example of someone wielding multiple talents, Roget is a shining inspiration for anyone concerned to focus on new talents, later in life.  Sure, he didn’t start his work on the Thesaurus until he was 70…but it didn’t matter.  He did it.  And he oversaw twenty-eight printings during his lifetime.  And he left a legacy as important today as it was in 1852.  It’s never too late to flex a talent…you just have to start.

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