M E A D. 
Oxford, through the interefl, as is fuppofed, of Dr. Rad- 
cliffe, who was not averfe to patronifing a junior of riling 
reputation, w hen he was himfelf declining. In 1711, he 
removed to Aultin Friars, into the houfe which had been 
inhabited by Dr. Howe, then deceafed. About the fame 
time he was appointed by the company of fiygeons to 
read the anatomicaf lectures in their hall, which he con¬ 
tinued to do for fix or feven years with great applaufe. 
In 1714, his friend and patron, Dr. Radcliffe, died ; and 
Mead took his houfe, in Bloomfburv-fquare. He was 
now a fellow of the College of Phyficians; and he had 
been called into confutation in the Inft illnefs of queen 
A line, a few days before her death, and pronounced more 
decilively on her danger than the court-phyficians. From 
this time he feems to have flood among the firft of his 
profeffion ; and in the beginning of 1715 refigned his of¬ 
fice at St. Thomas’s Hofpital, partly in confequence of 
his full employment, and partly of the diftance of the 
hofpital from his refidence. 
The occurrence of the plague at Marfeilles, in 1719, 
occafioned great alarm in London, where the dreadful 
mortality of 1665 was not forgotten ; and, by the direc¬ 
tion of the lords of the regency, the fecretary of date ap¬ 
plied to Dr. Mead for his opinion of the nature of the 
malady,and of the belt means of preventing its introduc¬ 
tion into this country. In confequence of this applica¬ 
tion, he publilhed, in the following year, “ A Short Dif- 
courfe concerning peltilential Contagion, and the Me¬ 
thods to be ufed to prevent it,” dedicated to Mr. Craggs, 
the fecretary of date. In this work he decidedly main¬ 
tained the contagious nature of the plague, which had 
been queftioned in France, and laid down a plan for the 
purpoie of cutting off all communication of the infedlion, 
by quarantine, lazarettoes, and other means of feclufion. 
This tradl palfed through no lefs than feven editions in 
one year ; to the eighth, in 1723, was added a new chap¬ 
ter on the method of cure; and the laft, publilhed in 
1744, was Hill farther enlarged ; it was tranflated into 
Latin by Mattaire, and afterwards by profelfor Ward. 
In the year 1721, Dr. Mead was directed by the prince 
of Wales (afterwards George II.) to fuperintend the ex¬ 
periment of inoculating the fmall-pox in the perfons of 
fome criminals, which had been recommended by lady 
M. W. Montague, in confequence of their knowledge of 
the falubrity of the practice, as performed at Conftanti- 
nople and other eaftern countries. His report was fa¬ 
vourable; fo that the example of the practice was imme¬ 
diately fet by the royal family, and its general introduc¬ 
tion thus accelerated. 
As Dr. Mead was ever anxious to fupport the honour 
of his profeflion by his liberal conduit, and by aflociating 
■with it the character of a friend and patron of learning, fo 
he afferted its dignity in his Harveian Oration, read be¬ 
fore the College in Odlober 1723, and afterwards pub- 
lifhed. In this oration he endeavoured to Ihow, that the 
profelfion was exercifed by feveral families of djftindlion 
among the Romans; and he annexed to it a dilfertation 
on fome coins, which had been ftruck at Smyrna, in ho¬ 
nour of phyficians. This publication was the origin of 
a controverfy, which was begun by Dr. Conyers Middle- 
ton, and in which Mead wasfupported by his friend pro- 
fefi'or Ward, of Grelham College. Dr. Middleton, per¬ 
haps with the greater weight of erudition on his fide, un¬ 
dertook to prove the fervile condition of the Roman phy¬ 
ficians. The controverfy was carried on in a manner ho¬ 
nourable to both parties ; and Middleton, in a fubfequent 
work on Greek and Egyptian antiquities, fpoke of Mead 
in terms of great refpeft. In the fame year, Dr. Mead 
gave an example of the honourable condudl that is due 
between the members of a liberal profeffion, in the fer- 
vices which he performed towards Dr. Freind, when the 
latter phyfician was committed a prifoner to the Tower, 
upon the fufpicion of being concerned in Aiterbury’s 
plot, in confequence of fome free obfervations which had 
fallen from him in the houfe of commons. (See the arti¬ 
587 
cle Freind, vol. viii. p. 33.) Dr. Mead obtained his li¬ 
beration in a fpirited manner; and paid over to him a 
confiderable fum, received from his patients during his 
imprifonment. 
In 1727, Dr. Mead was appointed phyfician inordinary 
to king George IT. His profefiionah occupations were 
now fo extenfive, that for many years he had no leifure 
for writing. He had, fo early as the year 1712, commu¬ 
nicated to Dr. Freind his opinions refpetling the im¬ 
portance of purgatives in the fecondary fever of fmall- 
pox, upon which fubjedl Dr. Freind publifhed a letter in 
1719. But it was not till the year 1747, that Dr. Mead 
printed his treatife “ De Variolis et Morbilis,” which con¬ 
tains many valuable obfervations on both thefe difeafes, 
and alfo Itrong recommendations of the practice of ino¬ 
culation. Both this work and the Letter of Dr. Freind 
were made the fubjedl of animadverfion by Dr. Wood¬ 
ward, (whofe fkiil in pathology appears to have been much 
inferior to his knowledge of natural hiftory,) in a work 
entitled “The State of Phyfic and Difeafes, &c.” which 
gave rife to a controverfy that engendered confiderable 
acrimony in the two learned advocates for the practice. 
Dr. Mead fubjoined to his treatife, which was written in 
a pure Latin flyle, a tranfiation of Rhazes’s Commentary 
on the Small-pox into the lame language, a copy of which 
he had obtained from Leyden, through the affiftance of 
his fellow-ftudent Boerhaave, with whom he had main¬ 
tained aconflant correfpondence. It was chiefly through 
the patronage and interpofition of Dr. Mead, that Mr. 
Sutton’s ventilator, for the purpofe of cleaning the foul 
air from fliips, was received into the navy, by an order 
from the admiralty,after a delay often years; and he (till 
farther recommended it, by adding to a publication of fe¬ 
veral tradts that had been written on the fubjedl, in 1749, 
“A Treatife on the Scurvy,” in which he aferibed that 
fatal difeafe to inoifttire combined with putridity. 
About this time, as he began to retire in fome degree 
from the fatigues of practice, he employed his leifure in 
reviling his former publications, and in compofing others. 
He publifhed in the year 1749 his “ Medicina facia, feu 
de Morbis infignioribus qui in Bibliis memorantur,” 8vo. 
The objedl of this work was to reconcile men’s minds tc> 
the facred writings, by (bowing that the difeafes, men¬ 
tioned in them, were explicable on natural grounds ; and 
he fupported the dodlrine of fome divines, who maintained 
efpecially that the dtemoniacs mentioned in the Gofpel 
were only infane or epileptic perfons. His laft u>ork was 
afummary of the experience ofhisadtive profefTional life, 
which might be deemed a bequell to his medical brethren, 
and was publifhed in 1751, under the title of “ Monita et 
Praecepta Medica,” 8vo. This little volume was almolt 
purely pradtical, confiding of detached obfervations on a 
variety of difeafes and medicines, many of which have 
flood theteflof fubfequent experience; it was frequently 
reprinted, and was tranflated into Englifli. Soon after 
this period, the infirmities of age rendered him incapable 
of exertion, either as a pradlitioner or an author; and he 
gradually funk under increafing debility, until the 16th 
of February, 1754, when he expired, without-any vilible 
figns of fullering, in the eighty-firft year of his age. He 
was interred in the Temple-church, near his brother Sa¬ 
muel, an eminent counfellor, who died twenty years be¬ 
fore him ; and a monument was eredled to his memory, in 
Weftminlter-abbey, by his fon. 
The medical charadter has rarely obtained more refpedla- 
bility than in the perfon of Dr. Mead. Fie was not only 
in high and univerfal efteem on account of his profeflional 
fkiil, out was the greated patron of fcience and polite li¬ 
terature of his time. He maintained a correfpondence 
with the principal literati of Europe ; all men of talents 
found a ready afliflance from him in every undertaking; 
and no foreigner of any learning or talle vifited London* 
without being introduced to Dr. Mead. His ample in¬ 
come was fpent in a noble and hofpitable way of living, 
in gratuities to men of fcience, and the encouragement of 
learned 
