e 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 principal 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 (No 283) for the months of
January and February 1703.

This last edition has received so many additions and alterations, as
might almost entitle 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 fortitude, 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