S Y D 
export figs from Athens was forbidden by law; and they, 
who in formed against persons disregarding this law, were 
called sycophants.'] A talebearer; a makebate; a malicious 
narasite. 
To SY'COPHANT, v. n. [a-v«opav7e&>, Gr.] To play 
the sycophant. A low had word. —His sycophanting arts 
being detected, that game is not to be played the second 
time; whereas a man of clear reputation, though his barque 
be split, has something left towards setting up again. Gov. 
of the Tongue. 
To SY'COPHANT, v. a. To calumniate. Not in use .— 
He makes it his first business to tamper with his reader by 
sycophanting and misnaming the work of his adversary. 
Milton. 
SYCOPHA'NTICAL, adj. Meanly officious; basely 
parasitical.—.Henry the Eighth of England [was] led by the 
advice of some of his sycophantical popish prelates. Sir 
Simonds D’Ewes. 
SY'COPHANTIC, adj. Talebearing; mischievously 
officious. Fawning. Mason. —’Tis well known, that in 
these times the illiberal sycophantic manner of devotion 
was by the wiser sort contemned. Ld. Shaftesbury. 
To SY'COPHANTISE, v. n. To play the talebearer. 
SY'COPHANTRY, s. A malignant tale-bearing.—It is 
fit that the accused should be acquainted with this, that 
competent time and means may be allowed for his defence, 
that his plea should receive, if not a favourable, yet a free 
audience; the contrary practice is indeed rather backbiting, 
whispering, supplanting or sycophantry than fair and 
lawful judging. Barrow. 
SYDABAD, a town of Hindostan, province of Agra, be¬ 
longing to the British. Lat. 27. 30. N. long. 77. 57. E.— 
There are several other towns of this name in Hindostan, but 
none of consequence. 
SYDAPORAM, a town of the south of India, district of 
the Carnatic. Lat. 11. 14. N. long. 79. 45. E.—The de¬ 
scendants of Mahomet being called Syeds, there are many 
places beginning with this name, all through the East. 
SYDE, a parish of England, in Gloucestershire; 5 miles 
east of Painswick. 
SYDENHAM (Thomas), a physician of extraordinary 
genius, was born at Winford Eagle, in Dorsetshire, about the 
year 1624. He was the son of a gentleman of independent 
fortune, and was sent to Oxford in 1642, where he was ad¬ 
mitted a commoner of Magdalen-hall. After pursuing his 
studies a few years, he quitted Oxford, and subsequently ob¬ 
tained the degree of doctor of physic at Cambridge, and settled 
in the practice of his profession in Westminster. 
The extensive practice which he is said to have enjoyed 
from 1660 to 1670, is perhaps only to be accounted for by 
the greater success which his superiority of skill in the dis¬ 
crimination and treatment of diseases would necessarily 
command, and which from the novelty of his plans, would 
become more readily a matter of notoriety; for from this 
period, namely, after the restoration, his opinions and poli¬ 
tical connections must have been on the wrong side. He 
appears to have met with opposition, too, on the part of the 
college; since he never was admitted to the rank of a 
fellow, and was only made a licentiate at a late period of 
his life. It is certain, indeed that he experienced no small 
share of the enmity and calumny which is usually excited 
by innovation; yet he appears, from his dedications to 
Drs. Mapletoft, Brady, Paman, Cole, &c., to have pos¬ 
sessed some intimate and valuable friends in the profession; 
and he seems to have conducted himself towards all without 
any of that arrogance which too often accompanies origin¬ 
ality of talent. 
An anecdote has been related, on the authority of Sir 
Richard Blackmore, in proof of Sydenham’s contempt for 
all medical writings. He is said to have replied to an in¬ 
quiry respecting the best books to be read to qualify a man 
for practice, “ read Don Quixote.” Sir Hans Sloane, how¬ 
ever, who affirms that he never knew a man of brighter 
natural parts, believed this to be a joke. It is certain, 
indeed, that Sydenham paid little attention to the prevalent 
Vol. XXIII. No. 1608. 
S Y D 805 
medical doctrines. He tells us, that, on commencing prac¬ 
tice, he was immediately convinced, that the only means of 
acquiring a correct knowledge of his art, was by a diligent and 
minute attention to the phenomena of diseases, by giving up 
his whole mind to the investigation of the changes and pro¬ 
gress of symptoms, from which the true and natural indica¬ 
tions of cure would be readily deduced ; an opinion which 
every subsequent year served only to confirm, and which, 
he adds, his friend, Mr. Locke, approved of. 
It was to febrile diseases that he first applied this induc¬ 
tive method, and he admits, that it was after several years 
of anxious attention and perplexity that he satisfied himself 
respecting the proper and successful mode of treating these 
maladies. In 1666, he published the result of his obser¬ 
vations on these subjects, in a work entitled “ Method us cu- 
randi Febres, propriis Observationibus superstructa;” which 
he afterwards republished, with remarks, suggested by subse¬ 
quent experience, under the new title of “ Observationes Me- 
dicae circse Morborum Acutorum Historiam et Curationem,” 
8vo., 1675. In this work, however, as in some of his other 
writings, we find hypothetical language pretty largely inter¬ 
mixed with sound practical observation. He commences 
with a definition of disease after the Hippocratic doctrine, 
viz., that it is “ a violent effort of nature, for the benefit 
of the constitution, to expel a morbific cause.” Thus, the 
plague he deemed a struggle to drive out the contagious 
matter by means of buboes, perspiration, or various erup¬ 
tions ; and the gout a providential exertion to depurate the 
blood by expelling its impurities; and according to the de¬ 
gree of violence with which this is effected, and the rapidity 
with which the critical depuration takes place, the disease, 
he affirmed was acute or chronic. Nevertheless, in his 
practice he seems to have been little influenced by hypo¬ 
thesis ; but to have regulated his views by an attentive con¬ 
sideration of the symptoms, and of they uvantia and Iccden- 
tia; and in this respect he was the author of much practical 
improvement. In the treatment of the small-pox especially, 
then a most frequent and fatal epidemic, he was led to adopt 
a most salutary method of cure, by repressing the eruptive 
fever, by means of cool air and antiphlogistic remedies, by 
which the subsequent eruption and consequent danger 
were greatly diminished ; although this was in opposition, 
not only to the prevailing practice, which consisted in 
forcing the eruption by heat and stimulating medicines, but 
to the hypothetical doctrine, which he had himself admitted. 
Subsequent experience has not only fully confirmed the 
propriety and success of his practice, but has shewn the 
necessity of extending it to other eruptive and febrile dis¬ 
eases. The sagacity and sound observation of Sydenham 
were also particularly manifested in the correct histories of 
some diseases which he has left. His descriptions of the 
small-pox, measles and gout, have been deemed models of 
medical history; and his detail of the singular variety of 
deceptive appearances, which hysteria assumes in females, is 
a display of extraordinary acuteness. He was extremely 
attentive also to the varieties which occurred in diseases, 
especially of the febrile class, in different seasons, and which 
required a corresponding modification of the treatment; and 
he has pointed out what he terms the epidemic constitution of 
particular years, by which all the prevailing diseases were in 
some degree modified. 
He died in December, 1689, at the age of sixty-five. 
After his death, a manual of practice, which he had compo¬ 
sed for the use of his son, was published by a friend, to 
whom he had consigned the MS., under the title of “ Pro¬ 
cessus Integri in Morbis fere omnibus Curandis,” 1693; 
which contains a very brief notice of the symptoms of many 
diseases, both acute and chronic, with some familiar for mu he. 
SYDENHAM, Damerell, a parish of England, in De¬ 
vonshire; 5 miles west-by-north of Tavistock. 
SYDERSTONE, a parish of England, in Norfolk; 6 
miles south of Burnham Westgate. 
SYDLING, a parish of England, in Dorsetshire; 8^ miles 
north-west-by-north of Dorchester. Population 495. 
SYDNEY, a town of New Holland, and the capital of 
9 T the 
