Dr. Comrie has compiled from various sources. Sydenham was not only a great physician but also a soldier, serving as a captain of Cavalry with the Cromwellian army. Other members of his family were prominent in the Parliamentary party and at the Restora­ tion it is supposed that Thomas Sydenham found it wiser to continue his medical studies elsewhere than in England and accordingly went to Montpellier. By 1661 he had found it possible to return with safety to England and begin the practice Selected Works of Thomas Sydenham, M.D. of medicine in London, where he soon with a Short Biography and Explanatory acquired a very large practice and was Notes. By John D. Comrie, M.A., B.Sc., M.D., F.R.C.P. Edin. William Wood & Co., New greatly esteemed by his professional col­ York. 1922. leagues although he never applied to be elected a fellow of the College of Physicians This little book performs a great service of London. It is said he had a feeling that to the medical profession in presenting to it the enmity of a certain clique of detractors the most practically useful of the writings in the College might render his application of the “English Hippocrates.” Although unsuccessful. Sydenham’s name is familiar to all physi­ As might be expected his association writh cians from their student days few of them the Puritan party also prevented him from have ever attempted to peruse his writings. ever acquiring an extensive clientele among In spite of the allusions we continually hear the nobility of the court of Charles 11. He made to his teachings or methods these are numbered among his friends and admir­ usually culled at secondhand. In the preface ers such men as Robert Boyle, John Locke, Dr. Comrie states: Dr. Mapletoft, Sir Thomas Millington, Sir Hans Sloane and Sir Richard Blackmore. It The extracts have been chosen in some cases because they describe conditions which Syden­ is curious that like his illustrious predecessor, ham was the first to record, in other cases be­ Galen who fled from the plague in his time, cause they give delineations of disease that have Sydenhan left London when the epidemic become famous, and in other cases because they raged within it, though afterwards he wrote have a permanent applicability by reason of his observations on the few cases he had their sound common sense. The extracts quoted seen. As all know he died of gout, of which in this volume form about one-third of Syden­ disease he had written a classic account. ham’s complete works. The book is accompanied by a few well chosen and handsomely reproduced illus­ The editor has certainly fulfilled in the trations. It should be in the library of ablest manner the aims he had in view and every teacher of clinical medicine and stu­ the reader will we think be led to desire a dents should be encouraged to read it as an further knowledge of Sydenham and his example of the fact that what is really great writings. These wishes will be aided in their in the work of the old masters of medicine accomplishment by a complete bibliography is as alive today as it was over two hundred which this volume contains, and by the most years ago when it was penned. excellent account of Sydenham’s life which Francis R. Packard.