Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): his life and original writings / [edited by] Kenneth Dewhurst.

  • Thomas Sydenham
Date:
1966
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Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Dr. Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689): his life and original writings / [edited by] Kenneth Dewhurst. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    privileges of the Parliament at Westminster, and the liberty of the subject. . . . May it please your Worship to be merciful too, if not to him, yet to me and mine (when we fall into your hands); till when your last experience might remember you that I am as far from fearing as my present condition is far from needing your quarter, which I hope I shall have an opportunitie to dispute further of with you; whom to any man in England I shall answer to this quarrel! 1 The appeal for clemency was ignored and the two prisoners were hanged. Sydenham was just as ruthless with his own men: he ordered a trooper to be burned through the tongue for swearing, 2 and en couraged the detection of other offenders by getting his soldiers to report one another. The recapture of Weymouth virtually ended Royalist resistance in Dorset, and Thomas Sydenham was now free to resume his inter rupted studies. Although he decided to return to Oxford, he had not formed any plans as to his future career. On his way there he visited his sick brother, then under the care of Dr. Thomas Coxe. 3 With his well-known kindness and condescension, Dr. Coxe asked me what pursuit I was prepared to make my profession [wrote Sydenham 4 many years later], since I was now returning to my studies, which had been interrupted, and was also arrived at years of discretion. Upon this point my mind was unfixed, whilst I had not so much as dreamed of medicine. Stimulated, however, by the recommendation and encouragement of so high an audiority, I prepared myself seriously for that pursuit. Sydenham returned to his old college, Magdalen Hall, but after a few months, transferred to Wadham. 5 The University was completely disorganized. In the spring of 1647 Parliament appointed Visitors (all fervent Puritans) to purge the Fellows who refused to take the Covenant, or in any way opposed the ruling powers. There was, of course, much opposition amongst Royalist supporters, and a year of conflicts, disputes, and dismissals passed before Oxford again became the centre of learning, more or less subservient to the will of Parliament. Sydenham's name occasionally appears in the Registers as a supporter 1 A. R. Bayley, op. cit., p. 245. 2 Ibid., pp. 317-18. 8 Dr. Thomas Coxe, M.A. (Cantab., 1638), M.D. (Padua, 1641), F.R.C.P. (1649). He had been a physician in the Parliamentary army, and became President of the College of Physicians in 1682. One of the original Fellows of the Royal Society, Coxe was removed from the presidency of the College of Physicians on account of his Whiggish tendencies. Anthony Wood, Fasti Oxonienses (1815), vol. n, col. 93, and William Münk (ed.), The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London (2nd. ed., 1878), vol. 1, p. 247. 4 Thomas Sydenham, The Works (1848), ed. R. G. Latham, vol. 1, p. 3. 6 Montagu Burrows, Register of the Visitors of the University of Oxford, 1647-1658 (1881), p. 561, and confirmed by Sydenham in a letter to Dr. Gould dated 10 December, 1687 (B.M., Add. MS. 4376, f. 75).