Sydenham, Thomas

Sydenham, Thomas, 1624–89, English physician, called "the English Hippocrates." He studied at Oxford and Montpellier, and practiced in London. His conceptions of the causes and treatments of epidemics and his classic descriptions of gout, smallpox, malaria, scarlet fever, hysteria, and chorea established him as a founder of modern clinical medicine and epidemiology. He advocated direct observation instead of theorizing to determine the nature of disease and introduced the use of such drugs as cinchona bark (containing quinine) in treating malaria, and laudanum in treating other disorders.

Bibliography

See studies by J. F. Payne (1900) and D. Riesman (1926); K. Dewhurst, Dr. Thomas Sydenham, 1624–1689: His Life and Original Writings (1966).

---

Sydenham, Thomas

(born 1624, Wynford Eagle, Dorset, Eng.—died Dec. 29, 1689, London) British physician. His Observationes medicae (1676) was a standard textbook for two centuries, noted for its detailed observations and the accuracy of its records. His treatise on gout (1683) is considered his masterpiece. He was among the first to explain the nature of hysteria and St. Vitus dance (Sydenham chorea) and to use iron to treat iron-deficiency anemia. Sydenham also named scarlet fever and differentiated it from measles, first used laudanum (a solution of opium in alcohol) as a medication, and helped popularize the use of quinine for malaria.