The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-04-26
SYDENHAM.
The Greatest of English Physicians-His Life
and characteristics.

and characteristics.
Indiana Medical journal, April.
Thomas Sydenham, the greatest name in
English practical medicine, was born in 1924
made Bachelor Of Physic in l649, Doctor of Med
icine in 1916 and died at London in 1859, Dur
ing his London life he suffered
from govt His description of
this disease is a classic in medical writings
We have societies bearing this honored name,
but to the mass of modern physicians Sydenham
is little more than name. Like Carlyle, he is
more talked of than read. This partly because
his works were in Latin. partly because much
in them is now scientifically outgrrown
and useless, and partly from
of the ancients" The chief delight in reading
his works, says DIR. Brown, ''is from the discov
cry he makes in them of his personal character,
the exemplar he furnishes in himself Of the four
qualities Hippocrates says are indispensable, in
every good notwithstanding, sagacity, hu-
manity, probity"
Sydenham insisted on physicians getting their
diagnostic knowledge at first hand Montaignes
sly hit at the doctors of his day, that they
make such description of our maadies a
town crier does of lost dog or donkey, of such
a color and height such ears, etc; but bring
the very animal before him, and he knows it not
for all that did not apply to him.
Sydenham did not hold with his contemporar-
les who based their hopes for the future of
medicine on discoveries in chemistry. He said:
THE chief defect of physic proceeds not
from a scarcity of medicines TO an
swer particular intentions but from the
want of knowing the intentions to be
answered" Everywhere he acknowledged the
Wis medicatrix nature. He says: When no
manifest indication pointed out to me what
should be done, have consulted my patients
safety and my own reputation most effectually
by doing nothing at ALL Again, as
to the treatment of new cpl
demic, he says my chief care in the
midst of so much darkness and ignorance was to
wait a little and proceed very slowly, especially
in the use of powerful remedies, in the mean
time observing the nature and procedure of the
malady and by what means the patient was re-
ieved or injurned."
Sydenham was born observer. Observation
was the natural habit of his mind. Fortunately
for his associates, he published many of his OBJ
servations but the best of him, as with all such,
died with him. He was intensely practical;
knowledge was with him a means rather than an
end. He found way and walked in it. He used
and proved his method. With him. first fact,
then opinion He said in his opinion the i'm
provement of physic depended, first, upon col
lecting as genuine and natural a history of dis
eases as can be procured, and second upon
laying down fixed and complete method OF
cure. He was eminently earnest and de-
vout Says DR.. Brown, in the essay on Locke
and Sydenham," in the Spare Hours: 1.-THE two
main issues of all his endeavors were the glory
of God and the good of men. Human life was
to him sacred, divine, as wellaS a curious
VullS D6udu uldI SSHllSISSS uuCOuipdoo4cl1 LOA
his suffering fellov-men without which no man,
be his intellect ever so transcendent, his learn
ing ever so vast, his industry ever so accurate
and inappesable, need hope to be a great
physician, much less a virtuous and honest
man. "Diligent beyond most men in gather
ing his pebbles and shells on the shores of the
great deep, and in winning for mankind some
things of worth from the vast and fOrmless in
finite, he was still not unconscious of the mighty
Presence beside which he was at work. He
was not deaf to the strong music of that Him
liable sea