The latter being, soon after, called to a consultation with two other eminent physicians, on the case of a young nobleman who lay dangerously ill of the small pox, proposed our author’s method; this was opposed till the fourteenth day from the eruption, when the case appearing desperate, they consented to give him a gentle laxative draught; which had a very good effect: Dr. Friend was of opinion to repeat it, but was over-ruled, and the patient died the seventh day after.[20]
From the result of this case, the gentlemen of the faculty were greatly divided in opinion, as to the rectitude of this practice, insomuch that Dr. Friend thought himself under a necessity of vindicating it; and therefore sent to our author for the purport of their former conversation upon this topic, desiring it might be reduced into writing. Such was the friendship that mutually subsisted between these learned men, that this request was granted without hesitation, and Dr. Mead’s letter was shewn to Dr. Radcliffe, who prevailed upon our author to consent, that the same might be annexed to Dr. Friend’s intended defence; which, however he was advised by some friends, to drop at that time; whereby this letter lay by till the latter’s publication of the first and third books of Hippocrates’s epidemics, illustrated with nine commentaries concerning fevers. Of these the seventh treats of purging in the putrid fever, which follows upon the confluent small pox: to which are annexed, in support of this opinion, letters from four physicians on that subject, and among them that from our author, which he had translated from the english into latin, enlarged and new modelled to serve this purpose.
This work gave rise to a controversy, maintained with an unbecoming warmth on both sides: among Dr. Friend’s principal opponents, may be reckoned Dr. Woodward; who, not contented with condemning a practice, experience has since evinced not only salutary in general, but in many cases absolutely necessary; likewise treated its favourers with contempt and ill-manners, and more particularly our author;[21] whose resentment upon this occasion, appears to have been carried to a justly exceptionable length, seeing it had not subsided twenty years after the death of his antagonist.[22]
Dr. Mead’s daily acquisition of knowledge and experience, enabled him to enlarge to many beneficial purposes, this performance, which, in all probability, was at first designed only to illustrate and vindicate the sentiments contained in the aforementioned letter; and it is but justice to say, the applause it has found among the learned, as well for the elegance of its diction, as the perspicuity of its precepts, is no more than what is truely due to it.——To this discourse is subjoin’d a latin translation, from the arabic of Rhazes’s treatise on the small pox and measles, a copy of the original having been obtained for this purpose by Dr. Mead, from the celebrated Boerhaave, between whom there had long subsisted an intimate correspondence, nor did their reciprocally differing in some opinions, diminish the friendship they mutually manifested for each other.
The year 1749, furnished two new productions from our author; a translation of one of which follows these memoirs. The other is entitled, a discourse on the scurvy, affixed to Mr. Sutton’s second edition of his method for extracting the foul air out of ships.
It is more than possible that, but, for the patronage of Dr. Mead, this contrivance, which confers no less honour to the inventor, than utility to the public, might have been for ever stifled: our author, than whom no one more ardently wished for, or more zealously promoted the glory and interest of his country, being thoroughly convinced of its efficacy, so earnestly, and so effectually recommended it to the lords of the admiralty, as to prevail over the obstinate opposition that was made against its being put into practice. To the same purpose in 1742, he explained the nature and conveniencies of this invention to the royal society,[23] and with the same view he confessedly wrote the last mentioned discourse, of which he made a present to Mr. Sutton.
His medical precepts and cautions, which appeared in 1751, and was his last publication, affords an indisputable testimony, that length of years had not in the least impaired his intellectual faculties. Our author has herein furnished the public, with the principal helps against most diseases which he had either learned by long practice, or deduced from rational principles.[24] Who could with the same propriety take upon himself to be an instructor and legislator in the medical world, as he who had been taught to distinguish truth from falsehood, in the course of so extended an experience, protracted now to almost threescore years? to this may be added, that he has so contrived to blend the utile dulci, by embellishing his precepts with all the delicacy of polite expression, as to render them at the same time not less entertaining than instructive.
However, this work was productive of two other little pieces, from two gentlemen of the faculty: one by Dr. Summers; who in a pamphlet on the success of warm bathing in paralytic cases, controverts Dr. Mead’s assertion, that “hot bathing is prejudicial to all paralytics” ... “calidæ vero immersiones omnibus paralyticis nocent[25].”—Some reflections upon the advocates for Mrs. Stephens’s medicines, in the cure of the stone and gravel, by our author, occasioned a letter to him on that subject by Dr. Hartley of Bath. The former expressed himself in the following manner; “Neque temperare mihi possum, quin dicam in opprobrium nuper medicis nonnullis cessisse, quod insano pretio redimendi anile remedium magnatibus auctores fuerunt.[26]” ... “Nor can I forbear observing, tho’ I am extremely sorry for the occasion, that some gentlemen of the faculty a few years since acted a part much beneath their characters, first in suffering themselves to be imposed on, and then in encouraging the legislature to purchase an old woman’s medicine at an exorbitant price.”[27] Of this the latter complains as an unmerited indignity, “Illud interea (inquit) tanquem inopinatum, & ab æquitate tua alienum queri liceat, Te, qui in obvios quoscunque comis & urbanus esse, bene autem merentibus de re medica, vel etiam literaria quavis, summa cum benignitate favere soleas, in lithrontriptici fautores acerbiùs invectum fuisse; & non potius laudi illis dedisse, quod arcanum sine pretio vulgatum, virorum dignitate, fide, ingenio, artis nostræ peritiâ illustrium examini subjecerent, neque aliam viam ad præmium reportandum aperiri voluerint, quam quæ, veris licèt rerum inventoribus facilis & munita, jactatoribus tamen & falsiloquis esset impervia.[28]” ... In the mean while, I cannot but complain of it as a thing unexpected, and greatly inconsistent with your usual candour, that YOU, who are so courteous and humane to all mankind, and so remarkably the patron of those who excel in the profession of physic, or indeed in any branch of learning, should so severely reproach the favourers of this lithontriptic medicine; and not rather have commended them, for submitting a secret, communicated to them without fee or reward, to the examination of some worthy physicians, eminent for integrity, ingenuity, and learning: and for endeavouring to excite the munificence of the publick in such a manner only, as to render it accessible to the true authors of an important discovery, but impervious to boasting impostors.
In enumerating the obligations the republic of letters is under to Dr. Mead, it would be injustice to omit taking notice, that to his generosity and public spirit, it is farther indebted for the first complete edition of the celebrated history of Thuanus.[29]