SYDENHAM. 107 and honesty, attempted the recovery of the health of all who committed themselves to my care, of what condition soever they have been (of whom none was otherwise treated by me than I desire to be, if I myself should happen to suffer the same dis- eases), but that also I have laboured to the utmost of my power, if by any means it might be, that the cure of diseases may be managed after I am dead with greater certainty : for I esteem any progress in that kind of knowledge (how small soever it be), though it teach no more than the cure of the tooth- ache, or of corns upon the feet, to be of more value than the vain pomp of nice speculations." From his treatise on the Gout, which has always been considered a masterpiece of description, we learn that he had suffered from the attacks of that painful disease during the greatest part of his life. In the dedication, which is to the learned Dr. Tliomas Short, Fellow of the College of Phy- sicians, he mentions, that while composing the treatise itself, he was so tormented with the gout, that he was unable to hold a pen, and was obliged to employ an amanuensis. It was written in 1683, and begins thus : — " Without doubt men will sup- pose that either the nature of the disease I now treat of is in a manner incomprehensible, or that I, who have been troubled with it thirty-four years, am a very dull fellow, seeing my observations about it and the cure of it little answer their expectations." With the graphic pen of one who has suffered the terrible martyrdom of this disease in his own per- son, he describes — " How the patient goes to bed and sleeps well till about two o'clock in the morning, when he awakes with a pain seizing his great toe,
