Prope hunc Locum sepultus est
Thomas Sydenham,
Medicus in omne Ævum nobilis.
Natus erat A. D. 1624,
Vixit Annos 65.
Deletis veteris Sepulchri Vestigiis,
Ne Rei Memoria interiret,
Hoc Marmor poni jussit Collegium
Regale Medicorum Londinense, A. D. 1810.
Optime Merito!
Amongst the direct practical improvements for which Society is indebted to Sydenham, is the employment of the cooling treatment in small-pox.
“I see no reason,” said he, “why the patient should be kept stifled in bed, but rather that he may rise and sit up a few hours every day, provided the injuries arising from the extremes of heat and cold be prevented, both with respect to the place wherein he lies, and his manner of clothing.” But the prejudices and authority of his contemporaries opposed the immediate introduction of this natural method; though so convinced was its judicious and discerning author of its propriety, that he foretold, with confidence, its ultimate universal employment—obtinebit demum me vitâ functo.
The prediction has been completely fulfilled; for what Sydenham recommended, the popularity and more extensive practice of Radcliffe soon introduced into general use, and the treatment has been amply sanctioned by experience. For, strange as it may appear, notwithstanding the estimation in which the works of this great ornament of physic have been always held, he made no powerful impression himself upon the general state of medicine, nor diverted in any material degree the current of public opinion from its former channel. The mathematical physicians, who succeeded him, invented new theories, more captivating than any which had hitherto appeared, and the full effect of the example of Sydenham was for some time lost in the seductive influence of visionary speculation.
What Mead effected in the improvement of medicine, by contributing so materially as he did to promote the practice of inoculation, has been already mentioned.
The mechanical systems which, for some years afterwards, prevailed, were powerfully assailed by the metaphysical theory of Stahl, revolution succeeded to revolution, old systems yielded to new doctrines, till the inductive philosophy gradually extended itself to the study of the animal economy. From among the various authors of these rival systems, it is impossible not to select the name of Boerhaave, superior perhaps in learning and information, and possessing more judgment than any of them. He has been compared to Galen, being endowed with the same extensive range of knowledge on all topics directly or indirectly connected with medicine, the same dexterity in availing himself of the information of his predecessors or contemporaries, and the same felicity in moulding these separate materials into one consistent and harmonious whole. By his great assiduity, his acquaintance with chemistry and botany, in short with every department connected with medicine, he raised the University of Leyden, his native town, to the rank of the first medical school in Europe. The next name, at which in this hasty and imperfect sketch, one would pause, would probably be that of Haller, whose correct description of the laws of the muscular and nervous systems gave a new impulse to the progress of pathology.
Cullen, who occupied the medical chair in the University of Edinburgh for a long series of years, was a man of a shrewd and penetrating genius, and for some time his doctrines, which were proposed with an air of candour, and even with a spirit of philosophical scepticism, received almost the universal assent of his contemporaries. In thus approaching modern times, we cannot fail to be struck with the great change that has taken place in the general character of the systems of physic, which has been effected by the gradual substitution of observation and experiment for learning and scholastic disputation. No one will deny that the result of this change has been the improvement of the practice of our art; hence the rate of mortality has decreased nearly one-third, within the last forty years, referable to the more temperate habits which prevail almost uniformly through all orders of society, to the entire disappearance or mitigated severity of many fatal diseases, and, above all, to the substitution of Vaccination for the small-pox.
It was in the year 1798 that Jenner published his “Inquiry into the Causes and Effects of the Variolæ Vaccinæ,” and announced to the world the important fact, that the cow-pox protects the human constitution from the infection of small-pox.
By this discovery the beauty of the human race has been greatly improved, and the vestiges of the small-pox have been almost driven away; for to see in our churches, our theatres, or in any other large assemblage of people, a young person bearing the marks of that disease is now of very rare occurrence. And if this be true in England, where every free-born Englishman values himself chiefly on the unquestioned liberty of doing what is foolish and wrong, without the dread of the least control, it is still more so in other countries of Europe. With us, crowds of the poor go unvaccinated, permitted not only to imbibe the small-pox themselves, but to be at large, scattering the poison on those whom they chance to meet. Whereas abroad, in most of the other parts of Europe, vaccination has been ordered by government; no one who has not undergone either cow-pox or small-pox being allowed either to be confirmed, put to school, apprenticed, or married.
Before the introduction of inoculation, small-pox killed one out of four of those whom it attacked; that method changed it into a disease by which one only out of several hundreds perished. Vaccination, by the excitement of a very trifling disorder, imparted a charmed life, over which the small-pox generally seemed to have no influence; for its protecting power must be qualified. It is foolish to deny that the pretensions of this great discovery were, in the enthusiasm of the moment, somewhat overrated; but, after more than twenty years’ experience, this consoling truth seems finally to be firmly established, that the number of those who take the small-pox after vaccination, and pass through a safe and harmless disease, is not greater than the number of those who used to die under inoculation, namely, one in three hundred.