Thomas Sydenham

I confidently affirm that the greater part of those who are supposed to have died of gout, have died of the medicine…

— Thomas Sydenham

Disease is nothing else but an attempt on the part of the body to rid itself of morbific matter.

— Thomas Sydenham

The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than twenty asses laden with…

— Thomas Sydenham

We may ascertain the worth of the human race, since for its sake God's Only-begotten Son became man, and thereby ennobled the…

— Thomas Sydenham

We are overwhelmed as it is, with an infinite abundance of vaunted medicaments, and here they add another one.

— Thomas Sydenham

For humble individuals like myself, there is one poor comfort, which is this, viz. that gout, unlike any other disease, kills more…

— Thomas Sydenham

This is all very fine, but it won't do-Anatomy-botany-Nonsense! Sir, I know an old woman in Covent Garden, who understands botany better,…

— Thomas Sydenham

Acute [diseases] meaning those of which God is the author, chronic meaning those that originate in ourselves.

— Thomas Sydenham

Gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals and…

— Thomas Sydenham

Lastly, he must remember that he himself hath no exemption from the common lot, but that he is bound by the same…

— Thomas Sydenham

The art of medicine was to be properly learned only from its practice and its exercise.

— Thomas Sydenham

Gout produces calculus in the kidney... the patient has frequently to entertain the painful speculation as to whether gout or stone be…

— Thomas Sydenham

The generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort in Nature, thrown down from her proper state, and…

— Thomas Sydenham

A man is as old as his arteries.

— Thomas Sydenham

As no man can say who it was that first invented the use of clothes and houses against the inclemency of the…

— Thomas Sydenham

“Of all the remedies it has pleased almighty God to give man to relieve his suffering, none is so universal and so…

— Thomas Sydenham

In writing the history of a disease, every philosophical hypothesis whatsoever, that has previously occupied the mind of the author, should lie…

— Thomas Sydenham

“...that the doctor being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself…

— Thomas Sydenham

Physick, says Sydenham, is not to bee learned by going to Universities, but hee is for taking apprentices; and says one had…

— Thomas Sydenham

“They love without measure those whom they will soon hate without reason.”

— Thomas Sydenham

I watched what method Nature might take, with intention of subduing the symptom by treading in her footsteps.

— Thomas Sydenham

It is my nature to thin where others read.

— Thomas Sydenham

Nothing in medicine is so insignificant as to merit attention.

— Thomas Sydenham

Fever itself is Nature's instrument.

— Thomas Sydenham

Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book; I still read it frequently.

— Thomas Sydenham