Sydenham

“ Sydenham sat motionless at his desk; Alden, the bank messenger, was within call in the outer office. The hands of the clock, which had been set back, pointed to five minutes of three.
A telegraph delivery boy entered and handed Sydenham a yellow envelope. He signed for it and the boy withdrew. He opened it, and instead of a written message drew out a fresh sprig of heliotrope. Motionless and scarcely breathing, he sat and gazed at it as though he could never fill his eyes with the sight.
"Now," said Indiman, pushing Mr. Sandford into the room where the young cashier sat. ”

“ I would rather have trusted Sydenham, with all his queer theories, than many a man with the ampler resources of to-day; for his century may aid but does not make the true physician, who is not the slave, but the master, of opinions. ”

“ Some friends of friends of mine, the Parminters, recently took a small house in Sydenham. Now Sydenham is not in the hey-day of its popularity. Scores of the bigger houses are to let, and the smaller ones—the majority at least—have not even that air of genteel respectability which characterises houses of the same size in some of the less remote suburbs. Of course the train service is responsible for much—even to think of a twenty-five minutes’ journey into Town by train, when one can go any distance on tube in next to no time, is both intolerable and demoralising. ”

“ Night crept apace and brought no abatement in the struggle of the man. Again and again with cameo distinctness he saw Lord Sydenham’s face with its queer incredulous smile when Strone told him of his decision to leave London, and he heard again as though they were there spoken the older man’s reply uttered with a note of anger in his thin well-modulated voice. ”

“ Blackmore was a poet, and Sydenham saw that the man who consulted him did not possess the stuff of which doctors are made, he therefore referred him to the most lively piece of writing then in existence, as furnishing fitter pabulum for a poet, than the dry discussions of medical subjects could afford. To describe the character of Sydenham, it would be necessary to call to our aid the highest forms of panegyric; a good and honourable man, living in harmony with his brethren, and as far as the troubled state of the country would allow, in peace with all men. ”

“ By Sydenham's will thirty pounds were bequeathed to aid the professional education of the young artist, his nephew. The family of Sydenham can be traced in the next century, and representatives of it are, it is believed, still living.
Sydenham's personal character has been universally recognised as noble, modest, and sincere. His dominant trait was his earnest endeavour to work for the good of mankind, both in his own immediate circle and in times to come. He had only done his duty in making his observations as accurately as possible, and publishing them for the public advantage. ”

“ A boy, it is remembered, refused to look at it, and hid under the table, because the eyes followed him.
I have not yet done with the Sydenham phantom. As may easily be supposed, the country-side has its legends of these great people, who, it is averred, drove a carriage with six or eight horses shod with silver. Amongst the legends is one that narrates the laying of Major Sydenham’s ghost, whose visits became so frequent and inopportune that the family at{96} Combe resolved on serious measures to prevent their recurrence. ”

“ Sydenham sat for Dorset in the parliaments of 1654 and 1656, distinguishing himself during the debates of the latter by his opposition to the exorbitant punishment the house wished to inflict on James Naylor (Burton, Diary, i. 51, 68, 86, 218, 257) . When the Protector's intervention on behalf of Naylor raised a complaint of breach of privilege, Sydenham recalled the house to the real question. ‘We live as parliament men but for a time, but we live as Englishmen always. I would not have us be so tender of the privilege of parliament as to forget the liberties of Englishmen’ (ib. i. 274) . ”

“ He is certainly not a strong man, and he has succeeded one who undoubtedly was. Sydenham turns out to have been a man of first-rate capacity, with great ability, discrimination, judgement, firmness, and dexterity. His whole administration in Canada fully justified the choice which Lord John Russell made of him, and the confidence he reposed in him. It is to the credit of Lord John Russell that he discovered and appreciated the talents of a man who was underrated here; but occasion and circumstance draw out the latent resources of vigorous minds. ”

“ A man who, at seventy, suffered his own despairs with the poignant ecstasy of youth, could not take a boy's failings seriously. Ewing now saw, moreover—for he was beginning to use another pair of eyes than Teevan's—that Sydenham himself was a hopeless mannerist, a color-mad voluptuary, painting always subjectively, refusing all but the merest hints from his subject. ”

“ So eager was she to ask Sydenham about Ewing that she gave scant attention to the searching looks and queries of Birley when she entered the drawing room. The big man rallied her on her pallor and frailness, but with a poor spirit that hardly concealed his real misgiving. She silenced him with impatient denials of illness, but his eyes lingered anxiously on her face.
She sat at table with but half an ear for their old-time gossip, the bantering gallantries of the aged swains, and the outworn coquetries of the one-time beauty. ”

“ Playing with men's vanity, tampering with their interests, their passions and their prejudices, placing himself in a position of familiarity with those from whom {108} he might at once obtain assistance and information—such, according to an eccentric writer of the day, were the secrets of Sydenham's success. ”

“ The Dorset branch began with Thomas Sydenham, who bought the manor of Wynford Eagle in the time of Henry VIII, and was the great-grandfather of Sydenham's father.
William Sydenham was a man of good estate, and of importance in the county. On the outbreak of the civil war he, with his family, actively supported the puritan party, and four, if not five, sons (i.e. all but two who died in infancy) appear to have served in the army of the parliament (cf. Hutchins, Hist. of Dorset, 3rd ed. 1864, ii. 703) . Of these brothers, William [q. v.] was afterwards well known as Colonel Sydenham. ”

“ In 1787 he was arrested for a trifling debt, and died in prison on 1 April. In consequence of his unfortunate death, the Literary Club was founded, for the purpose of assisting deserving authors.
Dr. Parr ‘ranked Sydenham first among the Platonic students,’ and Thomas Taylor (1758–1836) [q. v.] , the Platonist, though less fervent, held a high opinion of his merits.
Besides the works mentioned, Sydenham published ‘Onomasticum Theologicum, or an Essay on the Divine Names according to the Platonic Philosophy’ (1784, 4to) . ”

“ Milly, his house at Gascester, his shattered political career, were like dreams, something chimerical, burdens which had fallen away. A rare sense of freedom was upon him. He took long breaths of the clear, bracing air. The place had its old delight for him. He threw himself upon the turf, and closed his eyes. Here at last was peace.
Then the old madness again, burning in his brain, hot in his blood, driving him across the hills, stirring up again the old recklessness, the old wild delight. She was going to marry Lord Sydenham. ”

“ That the strength of Sydenham's understanding, the accuracy of his discernment, and ardour of his curiosity, might have been remarked from his infancy by a diligent observer, there is no reason to doubt; for there is no instance of any man, whose history has been minutely related, that did not, in every part of life, discover the same proportion of intellectual vigour ”

“ Sydenham, who had attracted my attention once or twice before by the infinite wretchedness of his face. A mere boy, too, hardly five-and-twenty at the most. He sat in a big chair, a magazine with its leaves uncut lying in his lap. For an hour or more he had not stirred; then he rang for a servant, directing him to inquire for any mail that might have come in the afternoon delivery. Nothing for Mr. Sydenham was the report, and again the young man relapsed into his melancholy musing. An hour later, and just after Indiman had joined me, Mr. ”

“ Baldwin ventured another look at the canvas in hand and fled below.
Teevan was watchful and permitted few chances for meddling of this sort. He contrived to be with Ewing most of the time when Sydenham was not. And Ewing never tired of Sydenham. If they walked the streets together the old man would direct his eye to some unnoticed felicity of color on the walls that shut them in, to bits of enchanting perspective, to subtle plays of light and shade in unpromising spots. Or if they sat alone at night the painter told of color in the world beyond the sea ”

“ By these discoveries, and by the method of studying diseases which he introduced, Sydenham is admitted to have made an epoch in medical science. Haller has used his name to denote a period in the history of medicine; Boerhaave never mentioned it without a tribute of respect.
Sydenham's reputation, as is often the case with innovators, rose more rapidly abroad than at home. Schacht, the eminent professor of Leyden, constantly recommended Sydenham's works to his students (C. L. Morley, De Morbo Epidemico, London, 1680, p. 112) . ”

“ The lives of three physicians—Sydenham, Sir Hans Sloane, and Heberden—completely bridge over the uncertain period between old empiricism and modern science. The son of a wealthy Dorsetshire squire, Sydenham was born in 1624, and received the most important part of his education in the University of Oxford, where he was created Bachelor of Medicine 14th April, 1648. ”

“ Soon after four o’clock I set forth upon another expedition, namely, by train from Victoria to Upper Sydenham Station. The autumn dusk was falling when I turned into Sydenham Hill, the wide winding road of large detached houses leading from Forest Hill up to the Crystal Palace. Essentially the residence of the wealthy City man, and an eminently respectable district, the houses stand in their own grounds with big old trees around, commanding fine views of South London. ”

“ This man was Thomas Sydenham (1624-1689) , who, while the great Harvey was serving the king as surgeon, was fighting as a captain in the parliamentary army. Sydenham took for his guide the teachings of Hippocrates, modified to suit the advances that had been made in scientific knowledge since the days of the great Greek, and established, as a standard, observation and experience. He cared little for theory unless confirmed by practice, but took the Hippocratic view that nature cured diseases, assisted by the physician. ”

“ He never was sought after by the great, like his successor and disciple Radcliffe; and had none of the talents by which that singular man was able to push his fortune and establish a kind of professional despotism. Yet, whatever medical skill the latter evinced seems to have been derived from Sydenham, whose doctrines and treatment he contrived to bring into a much more early and general repute in England than they would probably have otherwise obtained. ”

“ He had formed a close friendship with Thomas Sydenham [q.v.] , whom he consulted in Ashley's case. He accompanied Sydenham on visits to some of his patients; he wrote a Latin poem, prefixed to the second edition (1668) of Sydenham's work on fevers; and composed a preface and dedication (never used, but preserved in the Shaftesbury papers) for an intended work of Sydenham upon smallpox. Sydenham, in the preface to the third edition of his work upon fever (1676) , refers to the approval of his method by Locke, to whom, he declares, no man of the time is superior in judgment and manners. ”

“ By Silverdale at Sydenham is Jews Walk, and on Branch Hill at Hampstead is a fine prospect known as Judges Walk: here is Holly Bush Hill and Holly Mound, and opposite is Mount Vernon, to be connoted with Durovernon, the ancient name of Canterbury or Rodau’s Town.
Jews Walk, and the Grove at Upper Sydenham, are adjacent to Peak Hill, which, in all probability, was once upon a time Puck’s Hill, and the wooded heights of Sydenham were in all likelihood a caer sidi, or seat of fairyland.
My chair is prepared in Caer Sidi
The disease of old age afflicts none who is there. ”

“ SYDENHAM, HUMPHREY (1591–1650?) , royalist divine, the son of Humphrey Sydenham of Dulverton, by his wife Jane, born Champneys, was born at Dulverton in 1591, matriculated from Exeter College, Oxford, in Lent term 1606, and graduated B.A. on 24 Jan. 1610–11. He became a fellow of Wadham College in 1613, and was the first to graduate as master of arts from that foundation (3 Dec. 1613) . He took priest's orders in 1621, became librarian at Wadham in 1623, and was incorporated at Cambridge in 1625. ”

“ The divine takes precedence of the physician in this extraordinary production. He begins by preaching a sermon at his unfortunate patient. Having thrown him into a cold sweat by his spiritual sudorific, he attacks him with his material remedies, which are often quite as unpalatable. The simple and cleanly practice of Sydenham, with whose works he was acquainted, seems to have been thrown away upon him. Everything he could find mentioned in the seventy or eighty authors he cites, all that the old women of both sexes had ever told him of, gets into his text, or squeezes itself into his margin. ”

“ Thus in 1840, and in July, 1841, he writes: "I have every reason to be satisfied with having selected this place (Kingston) as the new Capital. There is no situation in the Province so well adapted for the seat of Government from its central position; and certainly we are as near England as we should be anywhere else in the whole of Canada. My last letters reached me," he says, "in fifteen days from London! So much for steam and railways." Being in very delicate health, it had been Lord Sydenham's intention to return to England in September, 1841. ”