Copy 1, Volume 1

The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D / Translated from the Latin edition of Dr. Greenhill, with a life of the author, by R.G. Latham.

  • Sydenham, Thomas, 1624-1689.
Date:
1848-1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D / Translated from the Latin edition of Dr. Greenhill, with a life of the author, by R.G. Latham. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    viz. that the generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort of Nature thrown down from her proper state, and defending herself in vain ; so that they have classed the attempts at a just description with the attempts to wash blackamoors white. 14. To return, however, to our business. As truly as the physician may collect points of diagnosis from the minutest circumstances of the disease, so truly may he also elicit indica- tions in the way of therapeutics. So much does this statement hold good, that I have often thought, that provided with a thorough insight into the history of any disease whatsoever, I could invariably apply an equivalent remedy; a clear path being thus marked out for me by the different phenomena of the complaint. These phenomena, if carefully collated with each other, lead us, as it were, by the hand to those palpable indi- cations of treatment which are drawn, not from the hallucina- tions of our fancy, but from the innermost penetralia of Nature. 15. By this ladder, and by this scaffold, did Hippocrates ascend his lofty sphere—the Romulus of medicine, whose heaven was the empyrean of his art. Heit is whom we can never duly praise. He it was who then laid the solid and immoveable foun- dation for the whole superstructure of medicine, when he taught that our natures are the physicians of our diseases.) By this he ensured a clear record of the phenomena of each disease, pressing into his service no hypothesis, and doing no violence to his description ; as may be seen in his books * De Morbis? ‘De Affectionibus, &c. Besides this, he has left us certain rules, founded on the observation of the processes of Nature, both in inducing and removing disease. Of this sort are the * Coacze Preenotiones,’ the ‘ Aphorisms,’ &c. Herein consisted the theory of that divine old man. It exhibited the legitimate operations of Nature, put forth in the diseases of humanity. The vain efforts of a wild fancy, the dreams of a sick man, it did not exhibit. Now, as the said theory was neither more nor less than an exquisite picture of Nature, it was natural that the practice should coincide with it. This aimed at one point only—it strove to help Nature in her struggles as it best could. With this view, it limited the province of medical art to the support of ! Novowy gboveg (nroot.—Epid. vi, 5, 1. t, iii, p. 606. [G.]