Sydenham

What is the lasting value of Sydenham’s writings? He rid the Pharmacopoeia of many dangerous and obnoxious remedies . . . His pioneering of quinine was of immense benefit in fever-ridden England, and countless lives were saved by his cooling regimen in the treatment of smallpox. He exhibited iron, either in the form of steel filings or as a syrup, in the treatment of hysteria and chlorosis; and in a pain-racked age he widely realized the value of opium which he gave in the form of liquid laudanum, replacing the solid pill commonly used in his day. . . Sydenham often dispensed with drugs altogether, and prescribed such simple remedies as fresh air, exercise, a moderate diet and the purgative waters of Barnet or Lewisham. But his reputation does not depend so much upon the many sensible and effective remedies he helped to introduce, as upon the general clinical principles which guided his own practice of medicine and illustrated his writings. Sydenham’s revival of the Hippocratic method of studying the natural history of diseases by making a series of accurate and detailed observations set the clinical pattern of future progress, so aptly summarized by Locke . . .” (Dewhurst, 94-95).