The lives of three physicians--Sydenham, Sir Hans Sloane, and Heberden--completely bridge over the uncertain period between old empiricism and modern science. The son of a wealthy Dorsetshire squire, Sydenham was born in 1624, and received the most important part of his education in the University of Oxford, where he was created Bachelor of Medicine 14th April, 1648. Settling in London about 1661, he was admitted a Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians 25th June, 1665. Subsequently he acquired an M.D. degree at Cambridge, but this step he did not take till 17th May, 1676. He also studied physic at Montpellier; but it may be questioned if his professional success was a consequence of his labours in any seat of learning, so much as a result of that knowledge of the world which he gained in the Civil war as a captain in the Parliamentary army. It was he who replied to Sir Richard Blackmore's inquiry after the best course of study for a medical student to pursue--"Read Don Quixote; it is a very good book--I read it still." Medical critics have felt it incumbent on themselves to explain away this memorable answer--attributing it to the doctor's cynical temper rather than his scepticism with regard to medicine. When, however, the state of medical science in the seventeenth century is considered, one has not much difficulty in believing that the shrewd physician meant exactly what he said. There is no question but that as a practitioner he was a man of many doubts. The author of the capital sketch of Sydenham in the "Lives of British Physicians" says--"At the commencement of his professional life it is handed down to us by tradition, that it was his ordinary custom, when consulted by his patients for the first time, to hear attentively the story of their complaints, and then say, 'Well, I will consider of your case, and in a few days will order something for you.' But he soon discovered that this deliberate method of proceeding was not satisfactory, and that many of the persons so received forgot to come again; and he was consequently obliged to adopt the usual practice of prescribing immediately for the diseases of those who sought his advice." A doctor who feels the need for such deliberation must labour under considerable perplexity as to the proper treatment of his patient. But the low opinion he expressed to Blackmore of books as instructors in medicine, he gave publicly with greater decorum, but almost as forcibly, in a dedication addressed to Dr. Mapletoft, where he says, "The medical art could not be learned so well and so surely as by use and experience; and that he who would pay the nicest and most accurate attention to the symptoms of distempers would succeed best in finding out the true means of cure."