CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
Dr. Thomas Sydenham
(Sept 10,1624 – Dec 29, 1689)
💠English Physician
His contributions…
🔹Sydenham studied medicine at the University of Oxford and graduated in 1648. Then he started his medical practice in London and simultaneously began his studies on epidemics.
🔹He was a reputed clinician during his period. Also, he was the first to describe and name the “Scarlet fever.”
🔹He then identified the relationship between fleas and typhus. Subsequently, he promoted the use of quinine bark to treat malaria, iron to treat anemia and further introduced a liquid tincture of opium for pain relief.
🔹Furthermore, he was the first to explain the movement disorder, which occurs after fever, and termed it Sydenham’s chorea also known as St. Vitus Dance.
🔹In fact, Sydenham was a gout sufferer and used to have frequent attacks of gout at his young age of thirty.
🔹Based on his self experience and clinical observation he published his masterpiece “Treatise on Gout” in 1683. In his book, he described obesity, excess intake of red meat and alcohol as the risk factors for gout.
🔹Subsequently, he published “The Method of Curing Fevers” in 1666. Later he expanded into “Observations of Medicine” in 1676, which served as a standard textbook for next two hundred years.
🔹Moreover, Sydenham was recognized as a founder of clinical medicine and epidemiology and celebrated is as “The English Hippocrates.”
🔹His detailed descriptions of the clinical conditions were a significant step forward in modern medicine.
A Day to Commemorate…
The Reformer of Clinical Medicine
Dr. Thomas Sydenham🙏🏼
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