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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    been in his youth on the battlefields of Dorset was a constant provoca tion to those who did not share his opinions. And his introduction of the cooling regimen in the treatment of smallpox placed him at the centre of heated controversy which provoked the hostility and ridicule of the majority of his colleagues. What stories of extravagancy and folly have the talk of prejudiced people brought upon me [he wrote], 1 soe much that it has been told to persons of quality that I have taken those who have had the small pox out of their beds and put them in cold water. How much some of my own faculty have fomented and increasd these reports they themselves know and with what design I leave it to their owne consciences. Did Sydenham magnify these stories of constant persecution? He certainly had a streak of the whining canting Puritan in his nature, but I doubt whether he greatly exaggerated. Had he done so, he would not have retained the confidence and support of Boyle, Locke, Hooke, and other friends of the highest intellectual integrity. Unfortunately, he lived at a time when medical controversy had reached great heights of vituperation. And it must be conceded that his dogmatic, highly critical, and uncompromising attitude provoked considerable antagonism; the forthright peppery qualities of the cavalry officer overshadowed the more retiring characteristics of the learned bookish physician. Occasionally, he deliberately threw down the gauntlet. It is my nature to think where others read, he boasted, 2 to ask, less whether the world agrees with me than whether I agree with the truth; and to hold cheap the rumour and applause of the multitude. And although Sydenham himself was highly sensitive to criticism, his cantankerous manner, as we have seen, had at times annoyed Oldenburg, Lady Ranelagh, and Willis. His temper was not improved by the constant torments of gout and the stone. Sydenham was plagued by gout before he was thirty years old, and in 1660, after a particularly severe attack, he developed the typical symptoms of renal colic. After a long walk, he developed haematuria which became habitual after walking any distance or riding over cobbled roads. Intense concentration brought on the gout. 3 These afflictions occasionally prevented him from practising for several months. The worst episode occurred early in 1677 when he was hardly able to practise at all. He convalesced for several months at Hatfield, the seat of the Earl of Salisbury. Dr. Sydenham who hath been laid up 1 P.R.O., 30/24/47/2, f. 55. 2 Thomas Sydenham, op. cit., vol. n, p. 122. 3 Ibid., p. 121.