Thomas Sydenham

Lore & Background

Thomas Sydenham was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset, where his father was a gentleman of property. At age eighteen he attended Magdalen Hall, Oxford; after a short period his college studies appear to have been interrupted, and he served for a time as an officer in the Parliamentarian army during the Civil War. He completed his Oxford course in 1648, graduating as bachelor of medicine, and about the same time was elected a fellow of All Souls College. It was not until nearly thirty years later (1676) that he graduated as MD, not at Oxford, but at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge, where his eldest son was by then an undergraduate. In 1655 he resigned his fellowship at All Souls and married Mary Gee in his home village of Wynford Eagle. They had two sons, William (c. 1660–1738) and Henry (1668?–1741); another son, James, apparently died young. In 1663 he passed the examinations of the College of Physicians for their licence to practice in Westminster and 6 miles round. His first book, Methodus curandi febres, was published in 1666; a second edition, with an additional chapter on the plague, in 1668; and a third edition, further enlarged and bearing the better-known title of Observationes medicae, in 1676. His next publication was in 1680 in the form of two Epistolae responsoriae, the one 'On Epidemics' addressed to Robert Brady, and the other 'On the Lues venerea' to Henry Paman. In 1682 he published another Dissertatio epistolaris on the treatment of confluent smallpox and on hysteria, addressed to Dr William Cole. The Tractatus de podagra et hydrope came out in 1683, and the Schedula monitoria de novae febris ingressu in 1686. His last completed work, Processus integri, is an outline sketch of pathology and practice; twenty copies of it were printed in 1692. He seems to have been distrusted by some members of the faculty because he was an innovator and something of a plain-dealer. He attracted to his support some of the most discriminating men of his time, such as Boyle and John Locke. His religious views have been described as an early form of natural theology.

Reader's Guide

Sydenham's fame as the father of English medicine, or the English Hippocrates, was posthumous. For a long time he was held in vague esteem for the success of his cooling treatment of smallpox, for his laudanum (the first form of a tincture of opium), and for his advocacy of the use of 'Peruvian bark' in 'quartan agues' (quinine-containing cinchona bark for treatment of malaria caused by Plasmodium malariae). But his larger importance was that he inaugurated a new method and a better ethics of practice. He did the best he could for his patients, and made as little as possible of the mysteries and traditional dogmas of the craft. He advised Sir Richard Blackmore to read Don Quixote, saying 'it is a very good book; I read it still.' There were cases, he tells us, where 'I have consulted my patients' safety and my own reputation most effectually by doing nothing at all.' In 1679, Sydenham gave Whooping cough the name pertussis. A zealous Puritan, 'he rejected on religious grounds attempts such as pathological anatomy and microscopic analysis to uncover the hidden causes of disease,' arguing that 'God only gave man the ability to perceive the outer nature of things with his senses.' Herman Boerhaave, the Leyden professor, spoke of him as 'Angliae lumen, artis Phoebum, veram Hippocratici viri speciem' ('The light of England, the skill of Apollo, the true face of Hippocrates'). Albrecht von Haller also marked one of the epochs in his scheme of medical progress with the name of Sydenham.

Did You Know?

• Sydenham served as an officer in the Parliamentarian army during the Civil War and received £600 in 1654 after petitioning Oliver Cromwell for arrears due to his two killed brothers.
• His first book, Methodus curandi febres, was published in 1666; a third edition became the better-known Observationes medicae in 1676.
• He gave whooping cough the name pertussis in 1679.
• He advised Sir Richard Blackmore to read Don Quixote as a medical text, saying 'it is a very good book; I read it still.'
• Only twenty copies of his last work, Processus integri, were printed in 1692.