{"id":1500,"date":"2011-09-12T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2011-09-11T21:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/?p=1500"},"modified":"2012-09-25T02:11:02","modified_gmt":"2012-09-24T14:11:02","slug":"thomas-sydenham-the-experimental-physician","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/thomas-sydenham-the-experimental-physician\/","title":{"rendered":"Thomas Sydenham, the experimental physician"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Anstey writes…<\/strong><\/p>\n

The London physician Thomas Sydenham (1624\u20131689) is regarded today as one of the greatest physicians of the seventeenth century. He is even claimed to have had an influence on the philosophy of John Locke. But what exactly is the basis of Sydenham\u2019s reputation?<\/p>\n

A careful study of the appearance of Sydenham\u2019s name in the medical writings of the latter decades of the seventeenth century and the correspondence of his friends and associates reveals that during his professional years he faced constant opposition and criticism. Henry Oldenburg, Secretary of the Royal Society, said of him in a letter to Robert Boyle (24 December 1667): \u2018with so mean and un-moral a Spirit I can not well associate\u2019. Sydenham was never to become a Fellow of the Royal Society or of the College of Physicians.<\/p>\n

However, his posthumous reputation is markedly different. After his death, Sydenham was praised for three things: his commitment to natural histories of disease; his decrying of hypotheses and speculation; and his Hippocratic emphasis on observation. Interestingly, these are the hallmarks of the experimental philosophy<\/a>. Witness, for example, what Locke says of him in a letter to Thomas Molyneux of 1 November 1692:<\/p>\n

    I hope the age has many who will follow his example, and by the way of accurate practical observation, as he has so happily begun, enlarge the history of diseases<\/span>, and improve the art of physick, and not by speculative hypotheses<\/span> fill the world with useless, tho\u2019 pleasing visions.<\/ol>\n

    By\u00a0 the early eighteenth century Sydenham\u2019s name could hardly be mentioned without effusive praise, such as that found in George Sewell\u2019s ode to Sir Richard Blackmore:<\/p>\n

      Too long have we deplor\u2019d the Physick <\/em>State, …
      \nThen vain Hypothesis, the Charm of Youth,
      \nOppose\u2019d her Idol Altars to the Truth: …
      \nSydenham, at length, a mighty Genius, came,
      \nWho founded Medicine<\/em> on a nobler Frame,
      \nWho studied Nature<\/em> thro\u2019, and Nature\u2019s <\/em>Laws,
      \nNor blindly puzzled for the peccant Cause.
      \nFather of Physick He—Immortal Name!
      \nWho leaves the Grecian<\/em> [Hippocrates] but a second Fame:
      \nSing forth, ye Muses<\/em>, in sublimer Strains
      \nA new Hippocrates in Britain <\/em>reigns.<\/ol>\n

      These comments are of the most general nature. There is nothing about the actual content of Sydenham\u2019s medical theories or therapeutics, which were so harshly criticized while he was alive. It is all about his methodology and it is cashed out in terms of the experimental philosophy.<\/p>\n

      Thomas Sydenham, by a remarkable change in fortunes, came to be regarded as the archetypal experimental physician largely thanks to his posthumous promoters such as John Locke. Sydenham, for better or for worse, was the experimental physician that the promoters of the experimental philosophy had to have.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

      Peter Anstey writes… The London physician Thomas Sydenham (1624\u20131689) is regarded today as one of the greatest physicians of the seventeenth century. He is even claimed to have had an influence on the philosophy of John Locke. But what exactly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[113],"tags":[226,4415,369],"class_list":["post-1500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ideas","tag-experimental-philosophy","tag-medicine","tag-sydenham"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.otago.ac.nz\/emxphi\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}