SNAKE-POISON LITERATURE. 57 



use cobra-poison for the same purpose. It is ^ll^^ 

 more than probable, also, that many savage hill """^ °p^"' 

 tribes of India apply cobra-poison to their spears 

 and arrows. 



One of the most celebrated of those men. Dr. Richard 



Mead. 



who have spent much of their time enquiring 

 into the subject of snake-poisoning was 

 Dr. Richard Mead,* the King's physician. In 

 1702, he published an account of his investiga- 

 tions, which is pregnant with interest. The 



* " Dr. Richard Mead was an eminent English physi- 

 cian, born at Stepney in 1625. At sixteen years of age 

 he was sent to Utrecht, where he studied three years 

 under the celebrated Grsevius, and then choosing the pro- 

 fession of physic, he went to Leyden and attended the 

 lectures of Pitoairn and Hermann. Having visited Padua 

 in 1695, he took his degree of doctor of philosophy and 

 physic, and returning home, he settled at Stepney and 

 practised physic with great success. 



In 1703, Dr. Mead was elected a member of the Royal 

 Society, of which Sir Isaac Newton was then President. 

 The same year he was elected physician to St. Thomas's 

 Hospital, and was also employed by the Surgeons to read 

 anatomical lectures in their hall. In 1707 his Paduan 

 diploma for Doctor of Physic waa confirmed by the 

 University of Oxford ; and on the death of Dr. BadcliflF, 

 Mead enjoyed the most extensive practice of any physi- 



