Part 1 (1/2)
Medica Sacra.
by Richard Mead.
MEMOIRS OF THE LIFE and WRITINGS Of the Late Dr. MEAD.
It is a natural, nor can it be deemed an illaudable curiosity to be desirous of being informed of whatever relates to those who have eminently distinguished themselves for sagacity, parts, learning, or what else may have exalted their characters, and thereby ent.i.tled them to a degree of respect superior to the rest of their cotemporaries.
The transmission of such particulars, has ever been thought no more than discharging a debt due to posterity; wherefore it is hoped, that what is here intended to be offered to the publick, relative to a gentleman, who is universally allowed to have merited so largely in the republic of letters, and more particularly in his own profession, a profession, not less useful than respectable, will not be judged impertinent or disagreeable.
Our learned author was descended from a distinguished family in Buckinghams.h.i.+re, and born at Stepney the second of August 1673. His father, Mr. Matthew Mead, was held in great esteem as a divine among the presbyterians, and was possessed, during their usurped power, of the living of Stepney; from whence he was ejected the second year after the restoration of king Charles the IId. Nevertheless, tho' he had fifteen children, of whom our Richard was the seventh, he found means, with a moderate fortune, to give them a compleat education. To this purpose he kept a tutor in his house to instruct them, and they were taught latin rather by practice than by rules.
Party-rage perhaps never run higher than about the latter end of Charles the IId's reign; hereby this little domestic academy was dispersed in 1683. The king, or rather his ministers, were determined to be revenged on those, whom they could not prevail on to concur with their measures. Mr. Mead (the father) was accused of being concerned in some designs against the court; wherefore being conscious that even his being a presbyterian, rendered him obnoxious to those in power, he chose rather to consult his security by a retreat, then to rely upon his innocence; to this purpose he sought and found that repose in Holland, which was denied him in his own country; having first placed his son Richard at a school, under the tuition of an able master of his own principles: under whose care our young gentleman, by a ready genius, strong memory, and close application, made a great proficiency. At seventeen years of age he was sent to Utrecht, to be further instructed in liberal knowledge, by the celebrated Graevius, with whom he continued three years.
Having determined to devote his attention to medicine, he removed from Utrecht to Leyden, where he attended Dr. Herman's botanical lectures, and was initiated into the theory and practice of physick, by the truely eminent Dr. Pitcairn, who then held the professorial chair of this science in that university: here our young student's a.s.siduity and discernment, so effectually recommended him to the professor, who was not very communicative of his instructions out of the college, that he established a lasting correspondence with him, and received several observations from him, which he inserted in one of his subsequent productions.
His academical studies being finished, Mr. Mead sought further accomplishments in Italy, whither he was accompanied by his elder brother,[1] Mr. Polhill, and Dr. Thomas Pellet, afterwards president of the college of physicians.
[1] Mr. Nathaniel Mead, who was at first destined to the service of religion, and preach'd two or three times at the meeting house at Stepney, built by his father, after his ejection from the parish church: but taking a dislike to theological studies, he applied himself to the law, and made as great a figure at the bar, as his brother did in physick.
In the course of this tour, Mr. Mead commenced doctor in philosophy and medicine at Padua, the twenty-sixth of August 1695, and afterwards spent some time at Naples and Rome: how advantageous to himself, as well as how useful to mankind he rendered his travels, his works bear ample testimony.
About the middle of the year 1696, he returned home, and settled at Stepney, in the neighbourhood where he was born: the success, he met with in his practice here, established his reputation, and was a happy presage of his future fortunes. If it be remembered, that our author was, when he began to practise, no more than twenty-three years old, that only three years, including the time taken up in his travels, were appropriated to his medical attainments, it may be, not unreasonably, admitted, that nothing but very uncommon talents, join'd to an extraordinary a.s.siduity, could have enabled him to distinguish himself, at this early a period of life, in so extensive, and so important a science.
In 1702, Dr. Mead exhibited to the public, a manifest evidence of his capacity for, as well as application to medical researches, in his _mechanical account of poisons_; which he informs us was begun some years before he had leisure to publish it. These subjects, our author justly observes, had been treated hitherto very obscurely, to place therefore the surprizing phnomena, arising from these active bodies in a more intelligible light, was his professed intention; how well he succeeded, the reception this piece universally met with, even from its first publication,[2] sufficiently declares. In 1708 he gave a new edition of it, with some few additions, the princ.i.p.al of which consists in some strictures on the external use of mercury in raising salivations. He has considerably further explained his sentiments upon the same head, in the edition of this work printed in 1747.
[2] An abstract of this work was thought deserving a place in the philosophical transactions (N 283) for the months of January and February 1703.
This last edition has received so many additions and alterations, as might almost ent.i.tle it to the character of a new performance.----A stiffness of opinion has been but too commonly observed, especially among writers on science; and age has been seldom found to have worn out this pertinacity: a favourite hypothesis has been defended even in opposition to the most obvious experiments, with a degree of obstinacy ever incompatible with the real interests of truth. On the contrary, our ingenious author has set before his literary successors, an example of sagacity and fort.i.tude, truely worthy of imitation, in the victory he obtained over these self-sufficient pre-possessions; length of years was so far from rivetting in him an inflexibility of sentiment, that, joined to a most extended experience, it served only to teach him, that he had been mistaken: his candid retraction of what he thought to have been advanced amiss by himself, cannot be better expressed than in his own words. ”Neither have I, says he,[3]
been ashamed on some occasions, (as the Latins said) _caedere vineta mea_, to retrench or alter whatever I judged to be wrong. _Dies diem docet._ I think truth never comes so well recommended, as from one who owns his error: and it is allowed that our first master never shewed more wisdom and greatness of mind, then in confessing his mistake, in taking a fracture of a skull, for the natural suture;[4] and the compliment, which Celsus[5] makes to him on this occasion, is very remarkable and just;” nor is it less applicable to Dr. Mead at present than it was to the Coan sage in his day. ”_More scilicet_, inquit, _magnorum virorum, & fiduciam magnarum rerum habentium. Nam levia ingenia, quia nihil habent, nihil sibi detrahunt: magno ingenio, multaque nihilominus habituro, convenit etiam simplex veri erroris confessio; praecipueque in eo ministerio, quod utilitatis causa posteris traditur._”
[3] Advertis.e.m.e.nt prefixed to the last edition of the essay on poisons, p. 4.
[4] Epidem. lib. iv. -- 14.
[5] Medicin. lib. viii. c. 4.
The insertion of additions and improvements in the t.i.tle of new editions of books, has been too generally, though sometimes justly, understood as little else than a contrivance of the bookseller, to animate a languis.h.i.+ng sale; but this is far from being the case in respect to the works of our author, whose maturer sentiments on many of the subjects, he had before treated of, cannot be well comprehended, unless by a careful perusal of his later corrections, seeing the alterations he has thought fit thereby to make in his earlier productions, are not less necessary to be attended to by the prudent pract.i.tioner, than they are really interesting to the unhappy patient: the truth of which cannot be more manifestly evinced, than by his last publication of his essays on poisons; wherein he entirely subverts his former hypothesis, and builds his reasonings upon a new foundation; he also tacitly admits his former experiments to have been too precipitately made, and the conclusions deduced from them, to have been too hastily drawn.
To ill.u.s.trate what has been advanced upon this head, it will not be improper to observe, that when Dr. Mead first wrote these essays, he was of opinion, ”That the effect of poisons, especially those of venemous animals, might be accounted for, by their affecting the blood only: but the consideration of the suddenness of their mischief, too quick to be brought about in the course of the circulation, (for the bite of a rattle snake killed a dog in less than a quarter of an hour)[6] together with the nature of the symptoms entirely nervous, induced him to change his sentiments,[7]” and to conclude, that the poison must be conveyed by a medium of much greater quickness, which could be no other than the animal spirits.
[6] Philosophical transactions N 399.
[7] Introduction to the last edition of the essays on poisons, page 12.
From hence our author is led to prefix to the last edition of this performance, an inquiry into the existence and nature of this imperceptible fluid, with which we have been but very imperfectly acquainted. He has also added several new experiments, tending to confirm this theory, and explain the properties of the viperine venom, particularly by venturing to _taste_ it; at the same time he has likewise contradicted some of those he had formerly made, whereby he had been induced to believe, this poison partook of a degree of acidity: for instance, he formerly a.s.serted that he had seen this sanies, ”as an acid, turn the blue tincture of _heliotropium_, to a red colour;[8]” whereas his more modern trials convinced him, it produced no alteration at all.
[8] Second edition of those essays, page 10.
The essays on the _tarantula_ and _mad dog_, are likewise considerably enlarged in the last impression; especially the latter, in which is now comprehended a regular and elegant history of the symptoms attending the bite of this enraged animal, the reason of the consequent _hydrophobia_, and more extensive directions for the cure: also an accurate description of the _lichen cinereus terrestris_, its efficacy, and manner of acting. A composition of equal parts of this plant and black pepper, was inserted, at our author's desire, into the London dispensatory, in the year 1721, under the t.i.tle of _pulvis antilyssus_, which he afterwards altered by using two parts of the former, and only one of the latter, as it now stands: in 1735 he also recommended the use of this medicine in a loose sheet, int.i.tled, _a certain cure for the bite of a mad dog_.