Thomas, an excellent English physician, was the son of William Sydenham of Winford Eagle, in Dorsetshire, and was born there about the year 1624. He studied at Magdalen Hall, Oxford, but left that university when Oxford was garrisoned for King Charles I., and went to London, where, becoming acquainted with Dr Cox, an eminent physician, that gentleman persuaded him to apply himself to the study of physic. Accordingly, after the garrison was delivered up to the parliament, he retired again to Magdalen Hall, entered on the study of medicine, and in 1648 was created bachelor of physic. He was soon afterwards made a fellow of All-Souls College, and continued there several years. On leaving the university he settled at Westminster, became doctor of his faculty at Cambridge, grew famous for his practice, and was the chief physician in London from the year 1660 to 1670; at which period he began to be disabled by the gout. He died in 1689. His works, written in the Latin language, are highly esteemed both at home and abroad. They have often been reprint- ed, and have been translated into various languages. Sydenham was famous for his cool regimen in the small pox, for giving the bark after the paroxysm in agues, and for his use of laudanum. He regulated his practice more by his own observations and inquiries, than by the method either of his predecessors or contemporaries.