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I think my most interesting character for next week, outside
of Hippocrates himself -- 2,000 years earlier, will be Thomas Sydenham. His father was a gentleman of
property, Thomas was born in Dorset, educated at Oxford, A Saxon, Sydenham
fought for the Parliament during England’s. Civil War as a cavalry officer. He
taught the Hippocratic method: inductive reasoning, virtue, credible signs and symptoms, and differential
diagnosis with meticulus attention to the patient.
Sydenham had the gout. Famously, he proclaimed, “gout attacked the rich more often than the poor, and it rarely attacked fools." ---“Those who may choose, may accept the present writer.” -- “If you drink wine, you have the gout…If you do not, the gout has you.”
Sydenham defined many disease entities with their signs and symptoms: Sydenham’s chorea for example. He described the association of scarlatina and erysipelas with chorea and may well have made the association of rheumatism and valvular heart disease.
I give a 1.5 hour lecture next week on the history of
medicine. I am not a historian. I got into this while in medical school at the
University of Michigan when I was elected to the Victor Vaughan Society, a
medical history group that met once a month and in turn presented papers on
some person or subject of historic interest. It was truly an elegant gathering;
the experiance stuck with me.
Sydenham had the gout. Famously, he proclaimed, “gout attacked the rich more often than the poor, and it rarely attacked fools." ---“Those who may choose, may accept the present writer.” -- “If you drink wine, you have the gout…If you do not, the gout has you.”
Sydenham defined many disease entities with their signs and symptoms: Sydenham’s chorea for example. He described the association of scarlatina and erysipelas with chorea and may well have made the association of rheumatism and valvular heart disease.
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