In one place he grimly remarks, that if a certain mode of treatment be resorted to, the patient will die of his own doctor, an end which in that age must have too frequently resulted, though not specified in the catalogue of diseases.
Here is a specimen of Sydenham’s witty apophthegms: “A man who finds a treasure lying on the ground before him, is a fool if he do not stoop and pick it up; but he is a greater one who, on the strength of such a single piece of luck, wastes labour and risks life for the chance of another.”
Again, “The usual pomp of medicine exhibited over dying patients is like the garlands of a beast at the sacrifice.” Elsewhere he refers to some persons “to whom nature has given just wit enough to traduce her with.” We must also refer to Sydenham’s humour his answer to Sir Richard Blackmore, who asked him what books he should study medicine in: “Read Don Quixote, sir, which is a very good book: I read it still.”
We notice as an instance of Sydenham’s kind-heartedness, a case in which he lent a poor man one of his horses for a several days’ journey, believing continuous horse-exercise to be the best cure for his disease.
Another characteristic touch is the following: “I have always thought that to have published for the benefit of afflicted mortals any certain method of subduing even the slightest disease, was a matter of greater felicity than the riches of a Tantalus or a Crœsus.” To Dr. Brady he remarks: “To you that undeserved abuse wherewith I am harassed by many, is a vexation and sorrow; whilst, of those who utter it this I may safely say, that if a harmless life, hurting none by word or deed, had been sufficient to protect me from their tongues, they never would have thundered against me. Since, then, it is from no fault of mine that these calumnies have fallen on me, this is my resolution, viz., that I will not afflict myself because other men have done wrong.”
Again he says: “My fame is in the hands of others. I have weighed in a nice and scrupulous balance, whether it be better to serve men, or to be praised by them, and I prefer the former. It does more to tranquillise the mind; whereas fame, and the breath of popular applause, is but a bubble, a feather, and a dream. Such wealth as such fame gives, those who have scraped it together, and those who value it highly, are fully free to enjoy, only let them remember that the mechanical arts (and sometimes the meanest of them) bring greater gains, and make richer heirs.”
He addressed to Dr. Thomas Short his treatise on Gout and Dropsy, because “although others despised the observations which I previously published, you had no hesitation in attributing to them some utility.”... “It is my nature to think where others read; 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.”
We have yet to note a remarkable fragment entitled “Theologia Rationalis, by Dr. Thomas Sydenham,” in manuscript in the Cambridge University Library. It appears to coincide very closely with other indications of his views, and it has been said of it, “There is much in it of the spirit both of Locke and Butler—of Locke in the spirit of observation and geniality; of Butler in the clear utterances as to the supremacy of reason, and the necessity of living according to our own true nature.” The general principles of his regard of the Divine Being may be judged from the following extract: “Wherefore, to this eternal, infinitely good, wise, and powerful Being, as I am to pay all that adoration, thanks, and worship which I can raise up my mind unto; so to Him, from the consideration of His providence, whereby He doth govern the world, myself and all things in it, I am to pray for all that good which is necessary for my mind and body, and for diverting all those evils which are contrary to their nature; above all desiring that my mind may be endowed with all manner of virtue. But in requesting things relating to my body and its concerns, having always a deference to the will of the Supreme Being, who knows what is best for me better than I do myself. And though my requests to these bodily concerns of mine are not answered, nevertheless, herein I worship Him, by declaring my dependence upon Him; and forasmuch as that, in many respects, I have transgressed His divine laws written upon my nature, I am humbly to implore His pardon, it being as natural for me to do it, as it is to implore the pardon of a man whom I know I have offended. In all which requests of mine, and all His creatures, how many soever they be in number, and how distant soever they be in place, He being infinite, is as ready at hand to hear and to help as any man who is but finite is at hand to administer food to his child that craves it.”
Thus we take leave of Sydenham, denominated by Locke “one of the master-builders at this time in the commonwealth of learning;” reckoned by the masters in his own and the next age as second to Hippocrates alone—the man whom Boerhaave never mentioned to his class without lifting his hat, describing him as “Angliæ lumen, artis Phœbum, veram Hippocratici viri speciem.”