Thomas Sydenham Quotes

• Acute [diseases] meaning those of which God is the author, chronic meaning those that originate in ourselves.

  Thomas Sydenham

  God, Disease

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1850). “The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.68

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• The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than twenty asses laden with drugs.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Exercise, Drug, Twenties

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• Among the remedies which it has pleased Almighty God to give to man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Men, Giving, Suffering

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• I confidently affirm that the greater part of those who are supposed to have died of gout, have died of the medicine rather than the disease - a statement in which I am supported by observation.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Medicine, Gout, Disease

  Works 'A Treatise on Gout and Dropsy' (transl. R. G. Latham) (1683)

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• Fever itself is Nature's instrument.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Nature, Fever, Instruments

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.54

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• The art of medicine was to be properly learned only from its practice and its exercise.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Art, Exercise, Practice

  Medical Observations Dedicatory Epistle

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• This is all very fine, but it won't do-Anatomy-botany-Nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden, who understands botany better, and as for anatomy, my butcher can dissect a joint full as well; no, young man, all that is stuff; you must go to the bedside, it is there alone you can learn disease!
  Comment to Hans Sloane on Robert Boyle's letter of introduction describing Sloane as a 'ripe scholar, a good botanist, a skilful anatomist'.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Science, Men, Garden

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• A man is as old as his arteries.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Men, Arteries

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• Nothing in medicine is so insignificant as to merit attention.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Medicine, Attention, Merit

  Medical Observations 5, Ch. 2

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• Disease is nothing else but an attempt on the part of the body to rid itself of morbific matter.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Body, Disease, Matter

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• We may ascertain the worth of the human race, since for its sake God's Only-begotten Son became man, and thereby ennobled the nature that he took upon him.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Nature, Son, Men

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.25

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• In writing the history of a disease, every philosophical hypothesis whatsoever, that has previously occupied the mind of the author, should lie in abeyance.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Lying, Philosophical, Writing

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.14

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• Gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals and philosophers have all died of gout.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Wise, Kings, Simple

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1850). “The works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.129

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• It is my nature to thin where others read.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Nature

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• Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book; I still read it frequently.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Book, Good Book, Very Good

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• Physick, says Sydenham, is not to bee learned by going to Universities, but hee is for taking apprentices; and says one had as good send a man to Oxford to learn shoemaking as practising physick.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Learning, Science, Men

  Thomas Sydenham, Kenneth Dewhurst (1966). “Dr. Thomas Sydenham, 1624-1689: His Life and Original Writings”

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• As no man can say who it was that first invented the use of clothes and houses against the inclemency of the weather, so also can no investigator point out the origin of Medicine - mysterious as the source of the Nile.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Men, Weather, Medicine

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.11

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• We are overwhelmed as it is, with an infinite abundance of vaunted medicaments, and here they add another one.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Add, Overwhelmed, Infinite

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.18

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• Gout produces calculus in the kidney... the patient has frequently to entertain the painful speculation as to whether gout or stone be the worst disease. Sometimes the stone, on passing, kills the patient, without waiting for the gout.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Waiting, Gout, Disease

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• The generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort in Nature, thrown down from her proper state, and defending herself in vain.

  Thomas Sydenham

  Nature, Confused, Effort

  Thomas Sydenham, Robert Gordon Latham (1848). “The Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D.”, p.16

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