1624-1689

English Physician

Thomas Sydenham put British medical practice on a firm empirical foundation. He eschewed medical theorizing, discounted medieval medical traditions and Renaissance science, trusted no medical author except Hippocrates (460?-377? B.C.), and based his therapeutics on his own direct observation of each patient.

Sydenham was born the son of a country squire in Dorset. In 1642 he matriculated at Magdalen Hall, Oxford University, but the English Civil War interrupted his studies. He fought on the side of Parliament and achieved the rank of captain. He returned to Oxford in 1647 and received his bachelor of medicine there in 1648. This was not an earned degree, but a reward for his services to Cromwell. Much later, in 1676, he received an honorary M.D. from Pembroke College, Cambridge University. He became a licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians in 1663, but never was admitted as a fellow, probably...