“Le vin sera mis avec l’eau pour boisson, et on en boira un seul verre pur (de Xeres) sur la fin du dîner.
“Les pâtisseries, la graisse, les légumes venteux, les fruits, sont defendus.
“Une soupe au bouillon ou de l’eau avec du lait, ou du thé et du pain serviront de souper.”
A letter of directions like these, though followed by the prescription of nothing more energetic than une légère infusion de feuilles d’oranger, et deux demi lavemens, will go farther to impress upon the mind of his patient a high opinion of the skill of the Doctor, than the simple and efficient practice of the most judicious and honest Physician of the English school.
If this be true in ordinary cases of sickness, it is more especially so with the hypochondriac, or with those whose appetites are jaded by a long course of indulgence. To them an expert Physician will say, “I advise you to take some calves’-feet jelly made with hock; or could you not fancy the claw of a boiled lobster, with a little butter and Cayenne pepper?”
But I have few adventures to relate; my state of retirement kept me in an almost total ignorance of what was passing in the great world. It may therefore be a fit opportunity for me to pause a little, and review, for a moment, the progress of medicine for the last hundred and fifty years.
This bust of Sydenham is in the Censor’s Room.
Sydenham died the very year I became connected with the profession; him, therefore, I never saw, but with his name and merits I soon became abundantly familiar. He has been usually styled the English Hippocrates, and with reason, for there is a great resemblance between their characters. Although they were both theorists, and, on many occasions, apparently founded their practice upon their theories, yet they were still more attentive to the observation of facts, and seldom permitted their speculative views to interfere with their treatment of their patients. In opposition to the Physicians of his time, Sydenham directed his first attention to the careful observation of the phenomena of disease, and chiefly employed hypothesis as the mere vehicle by which he conveyed his ideas. His merit has been justly appreciated by posterity, both in his own country and among foreigners; and his works continue to this day to be a standard authority, and are as much esteemed after the lapse of a century and a half, as they were immediately after their publication. But his skill in physic was not his highest excellence, his whole character was amiable, his chief view being the benefit of mankind, and the chief motive of his actions the will of God. He was benevolent, candid, and communicative, sincere and religious; qualities which it were happy if they would copy from him, who emulate his knowledge and imitate his methods.
Sydenham died at his house in Pall Mall, on the 29th December, 1689, and was buried in the aisle near the south door of the church of St. James, in Westminster. But the epitaph that indicated the spot being nearly obliterated, the College of Physicians resolved at their general quarterly meeting, (comitia majora ordinaria) held December 22, 1809, to erect a mural monument as near as possible to the place of interment, within that church, to the memory of this illustrious man, with the following inscription: