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Thomas Sydenham | |
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![]() Sydenham in a 1689 portrait by Mary Beale. | |
Born | Wynford Eagle, Dorset, England | 10 September 1624
Died | 29 December 1689 Pall Mall, London, England | (aged 65)
Nationality | English |
Alma mater | All Souls College, Oxford (MB, 1648) Pembroke College, Cambridge (MD, 1676) |
Known for | Clinical medicine |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Medicine |
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 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."[1]