Richard Mead

Infobox Scientist
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birth_date = 11 August 1673
birth_place = Stepney, London
death_date = 16 February 1754
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nationality = English
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field = medicine
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doctoral_advisor = JG Graevius
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known_for = epidemiology
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Richard Mead (11 August 1673 – 16 February 1754) was an English physician. His work, "A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it" (1720), was of profound historical importance in the understanding of transmissable diseases.

Life

The eleventh child of Matthew Mead (1630-1699), Independent divine, Richard was born at Stepney, London. He studied at Utrecht for three years under JG Graevius; having decided to follow the medical profession, he then went to Leiden and attended the lectures of Paul Hermann and Archibald Pitcairne. In 1695 he graduated in philosophy and physic at Padua, and in 1696 he returned to London, entering at once on a successful practice.

His "Mechanical Account of Poisons" appeared in 1702, and, in 1703, he was admitted to the Royal Society, to whose "Transactions" he contributed in that year a paper on the parasitic nature of scabies. In the same year, he was elected physician to St. Thomas' Hospital, and appointed to read anatomical lectures at the Surgeon's Hall. On the death of John Radcliffe in 1714, Mead became the recognized head of his profession; he attended Queen Anne on her deathbed, and in 1727 was appointed physician to George II, having previously served him in that capacity when he was prince of Wales.

While in the service of the king, Mead got involved in the creation of a new charity, the Foundling Hospital, both as a founding governor and as an advisor on all things medical. The Foundling Hospital was a home for abandoned children rather than a medical hospital, but it is said that through Dr. Mead's involvement, the Foundling was equipped with both a sick room and a pharmacy. He is even supposed to have influenced the architect, Theodore Jacobsen, into incorporating a large court yard to promote the children exercising. A full size portrait of Dr. Mead, donated by the artist Allan Ramsay in 1747, ensures that his contribution will not be forgotten. The painting currently hangs at the Foundling Museum.

Mead's country estate was at Old Windsor in Berkshire, but he died at his house in Bloomsbury in 1754. It later formed the basis of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Works

Besides the "Mechanical Account of Poisons" (2nd ed, 1708), Mead published:
*a treatise "De imperio solis ci lunae in corpora humana et morbis inde oriundis" ("On the Influence of the Sun and Moon upon Human Bodies and the Diseases Arising Therefrom") (1704)
*"A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it" (1720)
*"De variolis et morbillis dissertatio" (1747)
*"Medica sacra, sive de morbis insignioribus qui in bibliis memorantur commentarius" (1748)
*"On the Scurvy" (1749)
*"Monitci ci praecepia niedica" (1751)A "Life of Mead" by Dr Matthew Maty appeared in 1755.

References

*Citation
id = PMID:15211050
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15211050
last=Zuckerman
first=Arnold
publication-date=2004
year=2004
title=Plague and contagionism in eighteenth-century England: the role of Richard Mead.
volume=78
issue=2
periodical=Bulletin of the history of medicine
pages=273-308
*Citation
id = PMID:14560731
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14560731
last=Jordanova
first=Ludmilla
publication-date=2003 Sep
year=2003
title=Portraits, people and things: Richard Mead and medical identity.
volume=41
issue=133 Pt 3
periodical=History of science; an annual review of literature, research and teaching
pages=293-313
*Citation
id = PMID:11016094
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11016094
last=Roos
first=A M
publication-date=2000
year=2000
title=Luminaries in medicine: Richard Mead, James Gibbs, and solar and lunar effects on the human body in early modern England.
volume=74
issue=3
periodical=Bulletin of the history of medicine
pages=433-57
*Citation
id = PMID:3887688
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3887688
last=Riesman
first=D
publication-date=1985 Mar
year=1985
title=Dr. Richard Mead and the motto of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.
volume=7
issue=1
periodical=Transactions & studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia
pages=33-41
*Citation
id = PMID:4577312
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4577312
last=Mann
first=R J
publication-date=1973 Jul
year=1973
title=Historical vignette. Richard Mead, M.D., 1673-1754. 18th-Century exemplar of "experience and reason".
volume=48
issue=7
periodical=Mayo Clin. Proc.
pages=503-6
*Citation
id = PMID:11616730
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11616730
last=Abbott
first=J L
publication-date=1971
year=1971
title=Samuel Johnson and "The Life of Dr. Richard Mead".
volume=54
issue=
periodical=Bulletin. John Rylands University Library of Manchester
pages=12-27
*Citation
id = PMID:4890693
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/4890693
publication-date=1969 Jun 16
year=1969
title=Richard Mead (1673-1754) successor to John Radcliffe.
volume=208
issue=11
periodical=JAMA
pages=2156-7
*Citation
id = PMID:13969385
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13969385
last=BARNETT
first=C F
publication-date=1963 Mar
year=1963
title=Richard MEAD: a neglected polyhistor.
volume=12
issue=
periodical=The New physician
pages=A58-A60
*Citation
id = PMID:13555965
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13555965
last=CARTER
first=H S
publication-date=1958 Jul
year=1958
title=Richard Mead.
volume=3
issue=7
periodical=Scottish medical journal
pages=320-4
*Citation
id = PMID:13115737
url= http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/13115737
publication-date=1954 Feb 13
year=1954
title=RICHARD MEAD: pioneer and patron.
volume=1
issue=4858
periodical=British medical journal
pages=392
* Craig Hanson. "Dr. Richard Mead and Watteau's Comediens Italiens." Burlington Magazine 145 (April 2003): 265-272;
* Richard Hardway Meade. In the Sunshine of Life: A Biography of Dr. Richard Mead, 1673-1754. Philadelphia: Dorrance & Co., 1974;
* Arnold Zuckerman. "Dr. Richard Mead (1674-1753): A Biographical Study." Ph.D. diss. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1965.
*R.H. Nichols and F A. Wray, "The History of the Foundling Hospital" (London: Oxford University Press, 1935).
*1911