The sect of Sylvius propagated a chemical theory of disease. In addition to the Galenical notion of the humours, they supposed the existence of certain chemical operations, among the rest of fermentation, as at one time causing disease, at another aiding the efforts of nature to throw it off. Their practice was founded on the principles of Galen, though they adopted many remedies not indicated by him, but recommended by experience.

ture.

In the midst of this confusion of theories, Sydenham arose. He saw that the true mode of investigation was to begin by following naAs an example of the changes which he introduced into medical practice, we may contrast his treatment of small-pox with that of the physicians of the old schools. By the disciples of Galen and Sylvius, small-pox was supposed to be a disease of the fluids, and the eruption was supposed to arise from the efforts made by nature to throw off the morbid matter. The duty of the physician was, therefore, to aid the efforts of nature towards accomplishing this object, which they did by administering heating remedies, and covering the patient with blankets. Sydenham on the contrary, kept the patient cool, gave laxative medicines and cooling drinks, and in violent inflammatory cases even used the lancet. His doctrine of fevers and his plan of treating them were equally opposed to those prevalent in his day, and remarkably judicious. It is surprising that a mind so free from prejudice and error should have at the same time overlooked the contagious nature of small-pox. Sydenham has also left an excellent treatise descriptive of the plague. His information on the subject was drawn from his experience during the great plague in London in 1665. His practice was unusually suc

cessful he trusted almost entirely to blood-letting.

Himself a martyr to the gout, it is fortunate that he has left to us a record of his experience in that disease. His description of it is the most perfect and elegant that we are in possession of, and should be read by every student of medicine. The works of Sydenham are not voluminous, but they are all valuable. He is the father of the school of medicine of the present day; and from his time one of the eras in the science has been dated. Experience and observation are now our guide; hypotnetical speculations exercise but little influence upon our practice, and we guide nature only by following her. Boerhaave has pronounced an eloquent and high eulogium on Sydenham in the following words: "Unum eximium habeo Thomam Sydenham, Angliæ lumen, artis Phoebum; cujus ego nomen sine honorifica præfatione memorare erubescerem; quem quoties contemplor, occurrit animo vera Hippocratici viri species, de cujus erga Rempublicam Medicam meritis nunquam ita magnifice dicam, quin ejus id sit superatura dignitus."

His works appeared in the following order,--On Epidemic diseases, 1675; on the Luis Venereæ, 1680; on Confluent Small-pox, and Hysteria, 1682; on the Putrid Fever of Confluent Small-pox, in the same year; on the Gout and Dropsy, in 1683; a treatise on Fever, 1686; and a treatise on the Practice of Medicine, which was left in manuscript, and was published in 1693. These have been frequently printed, and translated into other languages.

Hon. Robert Boyle.

BORN A. D. 1627.-died A. D. 1691.

THIS distinguished philosopher and admirable man, was the youngest son of the celebrated earl of Cork, and was born at Lismore on the 25th of February, 1627. Genealogists have traced the name of the family to a period anterior to the conquest, and in Doomsday book it is mentioned in conjunction with the estate of Pixley court, near Ledbury, in Herefordshire. The wealth acquired by his father in public employments enabled him to render in return many important benefits to his country, and his family, which consisted of seven sons and eight daughters, largely partook of the esteem and honour he thereby obtained. It has been remarked as a somewhat curious fact, that the subject of this memoir was the only one of the earl's children who did not obtain a title. But the care with which he was brought up, and the abilities he derived from nature, made ample amends for his want of factitious dignity, and while he was the only one of the family left untitled, he is the only one whom posterity has universally.consented to regard with reverence. His mother died when he was but three years old, but his father fearing the effects of his being injudiciously nursed at home, had placed him under the care of a woman in the country, whom he directed to pursue the same plan with his son as she did with her own children. His directions being attended to, he had the satisfaction to see their good effects in the rustic health and vigour which characterized the youth of our philosopher, and the subsequent sacrifice of which to a less rational mode of treatment he had so much reason to deplore. On his reaching his seventh year it was deemed expedient to place him under the care of a tutor, and the person selected for the purpose of initiating him in the knowledge of Latin and French, was one of his father's chaplains, a native of France, and a man who appears to have been well-qualified for the task with which he was charged. But when little more than eight years old, his young pupil was removed to Eton, where, under the care of Mr Harrison, the then master of the school, he gave the most evident indications of those valuable endowments which were afterwards to be so usefully exerted in the cause of truth. His attention to study was unremitted, and the advancement of his mind was not inferior to the industry with which he laboured to improve it. The same sensibility to moral and religious impressions,-the same judicious and resolute attention to the most profitable modes of mental discipline, for which he was remarkable in after life, formed even at this early period part of his character. In the course of his residence at Eton, he met with several accidents which put his life in imminent danger. His preservation in these dangers he attributed solely to the merciful intervention of Providence; and when he found that the indulgence he had given himself in reading romances to wile away the languor of sickness, had weakened his aptitude for reflection, he resolved on commencing the study of mathematics.

On leaving Eton, where he remained but four years, he repaired to his father's residence at Stalbridge in Dorsetshire, and endeavoured,

under another tutor, to recover his knowledge of the classics, which, it is said, he had been allowed to neglect at Eton for other pursuits. In 1638 he was sent, accompanied by one of his brothers, to finish his studies at Geneva. He resided in that city with a Mr Marcombes, a person of considerable learning and ability, and with his assistance, he became acquainted with the principal branches of natural philosoph So well versed also did he become in French, that he for some time employed that language in preference to English. The most interesting circumstance, however, recorded of this period of his life, is the sensible change which now took place in his religious feelings. Allusion has already been made to the susceptibility of his mind on the subject of providential interferences; but this feeling is not necessarily connected with religious belief, properly so called, and he had not, it appears, till the time of which we are speaking, paid any serious attention to the evidences on which it rests. There were, however, two main principles in his mind, which form, as it were, the natural soil of religion,-a keen apprehension, namely, of what is morally right and excellent, and an equally keen desire to arrive at truth. The former of these rendered him more than commonly alive to every indication of Divine power, the latter at length led him to inquire with profound attention into the modes of its developement. It was on the occasion of an awful thunder-storm, which awoke him one night out of a deep sleep, that he first felt himself called upon to examine the situation in which he stood with respect to the solemn warnings of Christianity. The feelings which then had birth in his mind were farther increased by the visits which he paid to the Carthusian monastery at Grenoble, where he appears to have been assailed by all those conflicting emotions so natural to a youthful mind, in which reason and imagination as yet held disputed sway. While suffering under the distressing sensations produced by this state of feeling, he began a serious examination of the evidences,- -a labour for which he was rewarded by a firm and settled conviction of the truth. At the time when he thus anxiously devoted himself to religious inquiry, he was but fourteen, and had we not ample proofs of the advances he had made in other pursuits beyond the attainments usual at that age, we might be disposed to regard his religious progress as nothing more than the effect of youthful enthusiasm. But he had already learnt to reason; his mind was naturally cautious in its operations, and he had by this time acquired a sufficient stock of scientific knowledge to counterbalance the workings of any idle fancy. The method, therefore, which he pursued with regard to religion was the same which he had employed in the acquisition of other truth. "The perplexity," he himself says, "which his doubts had created, obliged him, in order to remove them, to be seriously inquisitive of the truth of the very fundamentals of Christianity; and to hear what both Greeks and Jews, and the chief sects of Christians, could allege for their several opinions, that so, though he believed more than he could comprehend, he might not believe more than he could prove, and not owe the steadfastness of his faith to so poor a cause as the ignorance of what might be objected against it." After a stay of about two years in Geneva, he proceeded to Italy, but while on his return from that country he received intelligence from his father, that owing to a rebellion in Ireland he could barely afford to send him the sum necessary to bring him and his brother to England. Even the order