Small (but important) correction: Turkey was never "the sick man of Europe" (for the simple reason that it never was or will be a part of Europe - culturally or geographically).
Turkey was (is) "the sick man on the Bosperus."
"Neither Nicholas nor Seymour completed the phrase with the clause "of Europe," which appears to have been added later and may very well have been journalistic misquotation. Take, for example, the first appearance of the phrase "sick man of Europe" in the New York Times (12 May 1860): "The condition of Austria at the present moment is not less threatening in itself, though less alarming for the peace of the world, than was the condition of Turkey when the Czar Nicholas invited England to draw up with him the last will and testament of the 'sick man of Europe.'
Figures it was the New York Times that screwed things up originally. Thank you for the correction.