Thomas Sydenham

“A man is as old as his arteries.”

“One must go to the bedside of the patient, it is there alone that he can learn disease.”

“Of all the remedies which Providence has bestowed upon man to relieve his sufferings, none is so universal and so efficacious as opium.”

“Humanity has but three great enemies: fever, famine, and war; of these, by far the greatest, by far the most terrible, is fever.”

“The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures the disease.”

“I have often thought that I have been more effective as a physician by observing what not to do than by knowing what to do.”

“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.”

“The doctor has no other business than to cure the sick, it is not his to introduce systems or to visit them with prejudices.”

“It is necessary to pay attention to the seasons of the year and the diseases they produce.”

“It is my nature to think myself not so much a better as a different philosopher from others.”