ving powerful medicines as we
are that he was giving practically none. "He builded better than he
knew," and certainly his results aided our ablest thinkers to reach the
truth.

I have named one of the most illustrious of physicians, Sydenham, as
among the great Englishmen who brought to their work the clearest
perception of how nature was to be best aided. He will answer admirably
to exemplify my meaning.

Sydenham was born in 1624, and lived in and through the wild periods of
Charles I. and Cromwell, and was himself a stanch republican. He more
than any other in his century decisively taught caution as to mere
medication, and sedulously brought the clear light of common sense to
bear upon the practice of his time. It is interesting to note, as his
biographer remarks, that his theories were often as worthless as his
practice was good. Experience taught him to do that for which he felt
forced to find a reason, and the reason was often enough absurd. "The
contrast gives a fine light and shadow effect in his biography."[2]

[Footnote 2: R.G. Latham, p. xxxvi.]

His systematic beliefs were ofttimes worthless, but great acuteness in
observation was apt to lead him to do wisely in individual cases what
was at variance with his creed. Speaking of Hippocrates, he says, "His
system led him to assist nature, to support her when enfeebled and to
the coercion of her when she was outrageous."

As to mere drugs, Sydenham used them in what was for his day an
extremely moderate fashion, and sagaciously limited in the old and young
his practice as to bleeding, which was then immensely in vogue. The
courage required to treat smallpox, measles, and even other fevered
states by cooling methods, must have been of the highest, as it was
boldly in opposition to the public and private sentiment of his day. He
had, too, the intelligence to learn and teach that the Jesuit bark,
cinchona, was a tonic as well as the master of the agues, so common in
the England of his time.

He is at his best, however, in his statement of how he treated
individual cases, for then his written theories are given to the winds,
or the practice is far beyond the creed in its clear common-sense value.

Thus, horseback exercise he constantly speaks of. He tells you of a
friend who had been much dosed by many for dyspepsia, and how he bade
him ride, and abandon drugs, and how, after a thousand miles of such
riding, he regained health and vigor. See how this wise