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66-656: It was named after the English physician Thomas Sydenham (1624–89). The prospectus of the Society by the time of its foundation in 1843 stated that: The Sydenham Society has been founded for the purpose of meeting certain acknowledged deficiencies in the diffusion of medical literature , which are not likely to be supplied by the efforts of individuals. It will carry this object into effect by distributing among its members — 1. Reprints of standard English medical works, which are rare and expensive. 2. Miscellaneous Selections from

132-550: A London Borough created in 1965) extended from the River Thames to the old Roman road from the City to western England, which is now locally called Oxford Street . {{{annotations}}} Thorney Island lay between the arms of the former River Tyburn at its confluence with the Thames, while the western boundary with Chelsea was formed by the similarly lost River Westbourne . The line of

198-457: A dozen monks in Dunstan's original foundation, up to a maximum of about eighty monks. Most of the parishes of Westminster originated as daughter parishes of St Margaret's parish , in the City and Liberty of Westminster , Middlesex . The exceptions to this were St Clement Danes , St Mary le Strand and possibly some other small areas. The ancient parish was St Margaret ; after 1727 this became

264-657: A geographical area at all; employed especially in the phrase "Westminster Village gossip", it denotes a supposedly close social circle of members of parliament, political journalists, so-called spin-doctors and others connected to events in the Palace of Westminster and in Government ministries. The area has a substantial residential population. By the 20th century Westminster saw rising numbers of residential apartments with wealthy inhabitants. Hotels, large Victorian homes and barracks exist near to Buckingham Palace . Westminster hosts

330-427: A good many years afterwards. It remains to consider briefly what his innovations were. First and foremost he did the best he could for his patients, and made as little as possible of the mysteries and traditional dogmas of the craft. Stories told of him are characteristic: Called to a gentleman who had been subjected to the lowering treatment, and finding him in a pitiful state of hysterical upset, he conceived that this

396-507: A greater easiness, plainness, and in the meantime letting the mountebank at Charing Cross pass unrailed at, they contradict themselves, and would make the world believe I may prove more considerable than they would have me." Sydenham attracted to his support some of the most discriminating men of his time, such as Boyle and John Locke . His religious views have been described as an early form of natural theology . His first book, Methodus curandi febres ( The Method of Curing Fevers ),

462-418: A like sufferer." The aphorism Primum non nocere (First, do no harm), often misattributed to Hippocrates, is attributed to Sydenham in a book written by the English surgeon Thomas Inman , but this attribution is not authenticated by Sydenham's available works. Sydenham's fundamental idea was to take diseases as they presented themselves in nature and to draw up a complete picture ( Krankheitsbild of

528-642: A long time he was held in vague esteem for the success of his cooling (or rather expectant) treatment of smallpox, for his laudanum (the first form of a tincture of opium ), and for his advocacy of the use of " Peruvian bark " in "quartan agues" (in modern terms, the use of quinine -containing cinchona bark for treatment of malaria caused by Plasmodium malariae ). There were, however, those among his contemporaries who understood something of Sydenham's importance in larger matters than details of treatment and pharmacy, among them Richard Morton and Thomas Browne who owned copies of several of Sydenham's books. But

594-529: A mural slab was put up by the College of Physicians in 1810. A memorial stone dedicated to Thomas can be found halfway up the staircase of St James's Church, Piccadilly. It was put there by the now-defunct "Sydenham Society". Among the lives of Sydenham are one (anonymous) by Samuel Johnson in John Swan's translation of his works (London, 1742), another by C. G. Kühn in his edition of his works (Leipzig, 1827), and

660-583: A salmon and various proofs that the consecration had already occurred. Every year on 29 June, St Peter's Day, the Worshipful Company of Fishmongers presents the Abbey with a salmon in memory of this event. A charter of 785, possibly a forgery, grants land to the needy people of God in Thorney, in the dreadful spot which is called Westminster . The text suggests a pre-existing monastic community who chose to live in

726-410: A stranger in tattered foreign clothing over the Thames to Thorney Island . It was a miraculous appearance of St Peter , a fisherman himself, coming to the island to consecrate the newly built church, which later developed into Westminster Abbey . He rewarded Edric with a bountiful catch when he next dropped his nets. Edric was instructed to present the king and St. Mellitus, Bishop of London , with

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792-524: A technicality suddenly turn if something is new, if someone should disclose something not previously said or heard"); and in a letter to Robert Boyle , written the year before his death (and the only authentic specimen of his English composition that remains), he says, "I have the happiness of curing my patients, at least of having it said concerning me that few miscarry under me; but [I] cannot brag of my correspondency with some other of my faculty .... Though yet, in taken fire at my attempts to reduce practice to

858-678: A third by Robert Gordon Latham in his translation of his works published in London by the Sydenham Society in 1848. See also Frédéric Picard, Sydenham, sa vie, ses œuvres (Paris, 1889), and Joseph Frank Payne , Thomas Sydenham (London, 1900). Dr John Brown 's Locke and Sydenham , in Hores subsecivae (Edinburgh, 1858), is of the nature of eulogy. Many collected editions of his works have been published, as well as translations into English, German, French and Italian. William Alexander Greenhill published

924-599: A time as an officer in the Parliamentarian army during the Civil War. He completed his Oxford course in 1648, graduating as bachelor of medicine , and about the same time he was elected a fellow of All Souls College . It was not until nearly thirty years later (1676) that he graduated as MD , not at Oxford, but at Pembroke Hall, Cambridge , where his eldest son was by then an undergraduate. After 1648 he seems to have spent some time studying medicine at Oxford, where he cites

990-521: A very challenging location. The recorded origins of the Abbey (rather than a less important religious site) date to the 960s or early 970s, when Saint Dunstan and King Edgar installed a community of Benedictine monks on the site. Between 1042 and 1052, King Edward the Confessor began rebuilding St Peter's Abbey to provide himself with a royal burial church. It was the first church in England built in

1056-682: A wholesome conservative effort or reaction of the organism to meet the blow of some injurious influence operating from without; in this he followed the Hippocratic teaching closely as well as the Hippocratic practice of watching and aiding the natural crises. Chronic diseases, on the other hand, were a depraved state of the humours, mostly due to errors of diet and general manner of life, for which we ourselves were directly accountable. Hence his famous dictum: "acutos dico, qui ut plurimum Deum habent authorem, sicut chronici ipsos nos" ("I say what hurts, most over which God has authority, just like we ourselves over

1122-565: Is consequently also used in reference to the Westminster system , the parliamentary model of democratic government that has evolved in the United Kingdom and for those other nations, particularly in the Commonwealth of Nations and for other parts of the former British Empire that adopted it. The term "Westminster Village", sometimes used in the context of British politics, does not refer to

1188-520: Is credited with the first diagnosis of scarlatina and with the modern definition, of chorea (in Sched. monit. ). After smallpox, the diseases to which he refers most are hysteria and gout , his description of the latter (from the symptoms in his own person) being one of the classical pieces of medical writing. While Sydenham's natural history method has doubtless been the chief ground of his great posthumous fame, there can be no question that another reason for

1254-452: Is one poor comfort, which is this, viz. that gout, unlike any other disease, kills more rich men than poor, more wise men than simple. Great kings, emperors, generals, admirals, and philosophers have all died of gout. Hereby Nature shows her impartiality: since those whom she favors in one way she afflicts in another - a mixture of good and evil pre-eminently adapted to our frail mortality." "It becomes every man who purposes to give himself to

1320-465: Is so universal and so efficacious as opium." "A man is as old as his arteries." "The arrival of a good clown exercises a more beneficial influence upon the health of a town than of twenty asses laden with drugs." "I confidently affirm that the greater part of those who are supposed to have died of gout, have died of the medicine rather than the disease - a statement in which I am supported by observation." "For humble individuals like myself, there

1386-577: The Schedula monitoria de novae febris ingressu ( The Schedule of Symptoms of the Newly Arrived Fever ) in 1686. His last completed work, Processus integri ( The Process of Healing ), is an outline sketch of pathology and practice; twenty copies of it were printed in 1692, and, being a compendium, it has been republished more often both in England and in other countries than any other of his writings separately. A fragment on pulmonary consumption

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1452-600: The City of Westminster and its council as Westminster City Council . The City and Liberty of Westminster and the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster were very similar in extent, covering the parts of the wider modern City of Westminster south of the Oxford Street , and its continuations Hyde Park Place. The exception is that part of Kensington Gardens , south of that road, are part of Paddington . Westminster merged with St Marylebone and Paddington in 1965, but

1518-497: The Palace of Westminster , near the abbey, became the principal royal residence, a transition marked by the transfer of royal treasury and financial records to Westminster from Winchester . Later the palace housed the developing Parliament and England's law courts . Thus, London developed two focal points: the City of London (financial/economic) and Westminster (political and cultural). The monarchs moved their principal residence to

1584-453: The Palace of Whitehall (1530–1698), then to St James's Palace in 1698, and eventually to Buckingham Palace and other palaces after 1762. The main law courts moved to the Royal Courts of Justice in the late-19th century. The settlement grew up around the palace and abbey, as a service area for them. The parish church, St Margaret's Westminster served the wider community of the parish;

1650-544: The Peabody Trust founded by philanthropist George Peabody . Given the focus on Westminster in English and British public life over centuries, the name "Westminster" is casually used as a metonym for the UK Parliament and for the political community of the United Kingdom generally. (The civil service is similarly referred to using the name of the northern sub-neighbourhood which it inhabits, " Whitehall ".) "Westminster"

1716-615: The River Tyburn , yet Victoria Street and other small streets and squares had the highest colouring of social class in London: yellow/gold. Westminster has shed the abject poverty with the clearance of this slum and with drainage improvement, but there is a typical Central London property distinction within the area which is very acute, epitomised by grandiose 21st-century developments, architectural high-point listed buildings and nearby social housing (mostly non- council housing ) buildings of

1782-516: The Romanesque style. The building was completed around 1060 and was consecrated on 28 December 1065, only a week before Edward's death on 5 January 1066. A week later, he was buried in the church; and, nine years later, his wife Edith was buried alongside him. His successor, Harold II , was probably crowned in the abbey, although the first documented coronation is that of William the Conqueror later

1848-586: The public domain and are available from online sources such as the Internet Archive . The volumes edited by the society included: In the term 1849-1850, the society was presided by Sir James Clark . Thomas Sydenham Thomas Sydenham (10 September 1624 – 29 December 1689) was an English physician . He was the author of Observationes Medicae (1676) which became a standard textbook of medicine for two centuries so that he became known as 'The English Hippocrates '. Among his many achievements

1914-468: The City of London and Southwark were enfranchised. The growing Elizabethan city had a High Constable, Bailiff, Town Clerk, and a keeper of the ponds. Charles Booth 's poverty map showing Westminster in 1889 recorded the full range of income- and capital-brackets living in adjacent streets within the area; its central western area had become (by 1850) (the) Devil's Acre in the southern flood-channel ravine of

1980-547: The Germans) of the objective characters of each. Most forms of ill-health, he insisted, had a definite type, comparable to the types of animal and vegetable species. The conformity of type in the symptoms and course of a malady was due to the uniformity of the cause. The causes that he dwelt upon were the evident and conjunct causes, or, in other words, the morbid phenomena; the remote causes he thought it vain to seek after. Acute diseases, such as fevers and inflammations. he regarded as

2046-462: The Latin text (London, 1844, Syd. Soc.). The most interesting summary of doctrine and practice by the author himself is the introduction to the 3rd edition of Observationes medicae (1676). A colleague, Dr John Browne, described him as "the prince of practical medicine, whose character is as beautiful and as genuinely English as his name". Westminster Westminster is a cathedral city and

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2112-475: The Middlesex sessions also had jurisdiction. Under local government reforms in 1889, the area fell within the newly created County of London , and the local government of Westminster was further reformed in 1900, when the court of burgesses and the parish vestries were abolished and replaced by the Metropolitan Borough of Westminster . The borough was given city status at the same time, allowing it to be known as

2178-419: The Society produced several medical translations. As of 1856, membership in the society costed five dollars. Every year, the members received "three volumes, handsomely bound in a uniform manner in cloth, gilt edged". New members could acquire any previous volume for two dollars and fifty cents, or combinations of 3 volumes for five dollars. As of 2024, the works translated by the society have already fallen in

2244-456: The acute disease varied, he found, according to the year and season, and the right treatment could not be adopted until the type was known. There had been nothing quite like this in medical literature since the Hippocratic treatise, On Airs, Waters and Places ; and there are probably some germs of truth in it still undeveloped, although the modern science of epidemiology has introduced a whole new set of considerations. Among other things Sydenham

2310-536: The admiration of posterity was that which is indicated by RG Latham, when he says, "I believe that the moral element of a liberal and candid spirit went hand in hand with the intellectual qualifications of observation, analysis and comparison." Hardly anything is known of Sydenham's personal history in London. He died at his house in Pall Mall on 29 December 1689, aged 65. He is buried in St James's Church, Piccadilly , where

2376-503: The ancient and from the earlier modern authors, reprinted or translated. 3. Digests of the most important matters contained in old and voluminous authors, British and foreign, with occasional biographical and bibliographical notices. 4. Translations of the Greek and Latin medical authors, and of works in the Arabic and other Eastern languages, accompanied, when it is thought desirable, by

2442-478: The area began with the establishment of Westminster Abbey on a site then called Thorney Island . The site may have been chosen because of the natural ford which is thought to have carried Watling Street over the Thames in the vicinity. The wider district became known as Westminster in reference to the church. The legendary origin is that in the early 7th century, a local fisherman named Edric (or Aldrich) ferried

2508-509: The attitude of the academical medicine of the day is doubtless indicated in Martin Lister 's use of the term sectaries for Sydenham and his admirers, at a time (1694) when the leader had been dead five years. If there were any suspicion that the opposition to him was quite other than political, it would be set at rest by the testimony of Dr Andrew Brown, who went from Scotland to inquire into Sydenham's practice and has incidentally revealed what

2574-412: The care of no mean creature, for, in order that he may estimate the value, the greatness of the human race, the only begotten Son of God became himself a man, and thus ennobled it with his divine dignity, and far more than this, died to redeem it. And fourthly, that the doctor being himself a mortal man, should be diligent and tender in relieving his suffering patients, inasmuch as he himself must one day be

2640-509: The care of others, seriously to consider the four following things: First, that he must one day give an account to the Supreme Judge of all the lives entrusted to his care. Secondly, that all his skill, and knowledge, and energy as they have been given him by God, so they should be exercised for his glory, and the good of mankind, and not for mere gain or ambition. Thirdly, and not more beautifully than truly, let him reflect that he has undertaken

2706-470: The chronic"). Sydenham's nosological method is essentially the modern one, except that it lacked the morbid anatomy part, which was first introduced into the natural history of disease by Morgagni nearly a century later. In both departments of nosology, the acute and the chronic, Sydenham contributed largely to the natural history by his own accurate observation and philosophical comparison of case with case and type with type. The Observationes medicae and

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2772-501: The civil parish of 'St Margaret and St John', the latter a new church required for the increasing population. The area around Westminster Abbey formed the extra-parochial Close of the Collegiate Church of St Peter . Like many large parishes, Westminster was divided into smaller units called Hamlets (meaning a territorial sub-division, rather than a small village). These would later become independent daughter parishes. Until 1900

2838-431: The combined area was allowed to keep the title City of Westminster . For a list of street name etymologies for Westminster see Street names of Westminster The former Thorney Island , the site of Westminster Abbey , formed the historic core of Westminster. The abbey became the traditional venue of the coronations of the kings and queens of England from that of Harold Godwinson (1066) onwards. From about 1200

2904-473: The first Epistola responsoria contain evidence of a close study of the various fevers, fluxes and other acute maladies of London over a series of years, their differences from year to year and from season to season, together with references to the prevailing weather, the whole body of observations being used to illustrate the doctrine of the epidemic constitution of the year or season, which he considered to depend often upon inscrutable telluric causes. The type of

2970-519: The home of England's government since about 1200, and from 1707 the Government of the United Kingdom . In 1539, it became a city. Westminster is often used as a metonym to refer to the Parliament of the United Kingdom , which sits in the Palace of Westminster . The City and Liberty of Westminster and other historical Westminster administrative units (except the broader modern City of Westminster ,

3036-595: The informal description of the abbey church and royal peculiar of St Peter's (Westminster Abbey), west of the City of London (until the English Reformation there was also an Eastminster , near the Tower of London , in the East End of London ). The abbey's origins date from between the 7th and 10th centuries, but it rose to national prominence when rebuilt by Edward the Confessor in the 11th century. Westminster has been

3102-663: The local authority was the combined vestry of St Margaret and St John (also known as the Westminster District Board of Works from 1855 to 1887), which was based at Westminster Town Hall in Caxton Street from 1883. The Liberty of Westminster, governed by the Westminster Court of Burgesses , also included St Martin in the Fields and several other parishes and places . Westminster had its own quarter sessions , but

3168-554: The loss of much blood. In 1655 he resigned his fellowship at All Souls and married Mary Gee in his home village of Wynford Eagle. They had two sons, William ( c.  1660 –1738) and Henry (1668?–1741); another son, James, apparently died young. In 1663 he passed the examinations of the College of Physicians for their licence to practice in Westminster and 6 miles round; but it is probable that he had been settled in London for some time before that. This minimum qualification to practice

3234-639: The main settlement of the London Borough of the City of Westminster in Central London , England. It extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street and has many famous landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster , Buckingham Palace , Westminster Abbey , Westminster Cathedral , Trafalgar Square and much of the West End cultural centre including the entertainment precinct of West End Theatre . The name ( Old English : Westmynstre ) originated from

3300-413: The name pertussis , meaning a violent cough of any type. A zealous Puritan, "he rejected on religious grounds attempts such as pathological anatomy and microscopic analysis to uncover the hidden causes of disease," arguing that "God only gave man the ability to perceive the outer nature of things with his senses." "Of all the remedies it has pleased almighty God to give man to relieve his suffering, none

3366-572: The name there, came back to London full of rage, but cured withal of his complaint. Of a piece with this is his famous advice to Sir Richard Blackmore . When Blackmore first engaged in the study of physic he inquired of Dr Sydenham what authors he should read, and was directed by that physician to Don Quixote , which, said he, "is a very good book; I read it still." There were cases, he tells us, in his practice where "I have consulted my patients' safety and my own reputation most effectually by doing nothing at all." In 1679, Sydenham gave Whooping cough

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3432-401: The original text. 5. Translations of recent foreign works of merit. 6. Original works of great merit, which might be very valuable as books of reference , but which would not otherwise be published, from not being likely to have a remunerating sale,—such as classified Bibliographies, and alphabetical Indexes to periodical publications and other valuable voluminous works. The members of

3498-552: The other, "On the Lues venerea", ( On Venereal Diseases ) to Henry Paman , public orator at Cambridge and Gresham Professor of Physic in London. In 1682 he published another Dissertatio epistolaris ( Dissertation on the Letters ), on the treatment of confluent smallpox and on hysteria , addressed to Dr William Cole of Worcester. The Tractatus de podagra et hydrope ( The Management of Arthritis and Dropsy ) came out in 1683, and

3564-469: The parish ranked as a "City", although it was only a fraction of the size of the City of London and the Borough of Southwark at that time. Indeed, the cathedral and diocesan status of the church lasted only from 1539 to 1556, but the "city" status remained for a mere parish within Middlesex. As such it is first known to have had two Members of Parliament in 1545 as a new Parliamentary Borough , centuries after

3630-400: The physician Thomas Coxe as an important influence - Coxe was caring for his brother. But he was soon back in military service, and in 1654 he received the sum of £600, as a result of a petition he addressed to Oliver Cromwell , pointing out the various arrears due to two of his brothers who had been killed and reminding Cromwell that he himself had also faithfully served the parliament with

3696-587: The river still forms (with very slight revisions) the boundaries of the modern borough with the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea . Further north, away from the river mouth, Westminster included land on both sides of the Westbourne, notably Knightsbridge (including the parts of Hyde Park west of the Serpentine lake (originally formed by damming the river) and most of Kensington Gardens). Westminster includes

3762-582: The same year. The only extant depiction of Edward's abbey, together with the adjacent Palace of Westminster , is in the Bayeux Tapestry . Some of the lower parts of the monastic dormitory, an extension of the south transept, survive in the Norman Undercroft of the Great School, including a door said to come from the previous Saxon abbey. Increased endowments supported a community that increased from

3828-501: The servants of the palace and abbey as well as the rural population and those associated with the high status homes developing on the road from the city. The area became larger and in the Georgian period became connected through urban ribbon development with the City along the Strand. Henry VIII 's Reformation in the early 16th century abolished the abbey and established a cathedral – thus

3894-399: The skill of Apollo, the true face of Hippocrates"). Albrecht von Haller also marked one of the epochs in his scheme of medical progress with the name of Sydenham. He is indeed famous because he inaugurated a new method and a better ethics of practice, the worth and diffusive influence of which did not become obvious (except to those who were on the same line with himself, such as Morton) until

3960-540: The sub-districts of Soho , St James , Mayfair , Covent Garden , Pimlico , Victoria , Belgravia and Knightsbridge (shared with neighbouring Kensington ). The former City of Westminster merged with the neighbouring boroughs of Paddington and Marylebone in 1965 to form a larger modern borough. These neighbouring areas (except for a small area of Paddington in part of Kensington Gardens), lie north of Oxford Street and its westward continuation, Bayswater Road. The district's open spaces include: The development of

4026-635: Was commonly thought of it at the time, in his Vindicatory Schedule concerning the New Cure of Fevers . In the series of Harveian Orations at the College of Physicians, Sydenham is first mentioned in the oration of Dr John Arbuthnot (1727), who styles him "aemulus Hippocratis" ("rival of Hippocrates"). Herman Boerhaave , the Leyden professor, was wont to speak of him in his class (which had always some pupils from England and Scotland) as "Angliae lumen, artis Phoebum, veram Hippocratici viri speciem" ("The light of England,

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4092-470: Was found among his papers. His collected writings occupy about 600 pages 8vo, in the Latin, translated into that language by various scholars. Although Sydenham was a successful practitioner and witnessed, besides foreign reprints, more than one new edition of his various treatises called for in his lifetime, his fame as the father of English medicine, or the English Hippocrates , was posthumous. For

4158-506: Was occasioned partly by his long illness, partly by the previous evacuations, and partly by emptiness. "I therefore ordered him a roast chicken and a pint of canary ." A gentleman of fortune he diagnosed with hypochondria was at length told he could do no more for him, but that there was living at Inverness a certain Dr Robertson who had great skill in cases like his; the patient journeyed to Inverness full of hope, and, finding no doctor of

4224-450: Was published in 1666; a second edition, with an additional chapter on the plague , in 1668; and a third edition, further enlarged and bearing the better-known title of Observationes mediciae ( Observations of Medicine ), in 1676. His next publication was in 1680 in the form of two Epistolae responsoriae ( Letters & Replies ), the one, "On Epidemics ", addressed to Robert Brady , Regius Professor of Physic at Cambridge , and

4290-521: Was the discovery of a disease, Sydenham's chorea , also known as St Vitus' Dance. To him is attributed the prescient dictum, "A man is as old as his arteries." Thomas Sydenham was born at Wynford Eagle in Dorset , where his father was a gentleman of property. His brother was Colonel William Sydenham . At the age of eighteen Sydenham attended Magdalen Hall , Oxford; after a short period his college studies appear to have been interrupted, and he served for

4356-420: Was the single bond between Sydenham and the College of Physicians throughout the whole of his career. He seems to have been distrusted by some members of the faculty because he was an innovator and something of a plain-dealer. In a letter to John Mapletoft he refers to a class of detractors "qui vitio statim vertunt si quis novi aliquid, ab illis non-prius dictum vel etiam inauditum, in medium proferat" ("Who by

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