l utility to the practice of physic. To the
whole is now first adjoined a corollary tending to strengthen his
reasonings upon the subject, by observations of the effects of storms
on the human body; wherein, from the case of a lady who was seized in
an instant with a _gutta serena_, (that rendered her totally blind) on
the night of the great storm which happened in 1703, he is led to give
a distinct account of the cause and cure of that melancholly
distemper. This work is also remarkably distinguished by many curious
observations our author received from his ingenious preceptor in the
art of healing, Dr. _Pitcairne_.

[11] Stack's translation of the influence of the sun and
moon, p. 21.

[12] Ibid. p. 30.

Our author's distinguished genius for, and sedulous attention to the
interests of his profession, procured him an acquisition of farther
honours, as well as recommended him to the patronage of the most
eminent of the faculty: in 1707 his _Paduan diploma_ for doctor of
physick, was confirmed by the university of Oxford; in 1716 he was
elected fellow of the college of physicians, and served all the
offices of that learned body, except that of president, which he
declined when offered to him in 1744. Radcliff, the most followed
physician of his day, in a particular manner espoused Dr. Mead, and in
1714, upon the death of the former, the latter succeeded him in his
house, and the greater part of his practice; some years before which,
he had quitted Stepney, and had resided in Austin Fryars.

Party-principles were far from influencing his attachments; though he
was himself a zealous whig, he was equally the intimate of _Garth_,
_Arbuthnot_, and _Friend_: his connections, more especially, with the
latter, are manifested not only in their mutual writings, (of which,
more hereafter) but in that when Dr. _Friend_ was committed a prisoner
to the Tower in 1723, upon a suggestion of his being concerned in the
practices of Bishop _Atterbury_ against the government, Dr. _Mead_
became one of his securities to procure his enlargement.

In 1719, an epidemic fever made great ravages at Marseilles; and tho'
the French physicians were very unwilling to admit, this disease to
have been of foreign extraction or contagious; yet our government
wisely thought it necessary, to consider of such measures as might be
the most likely to prevent our being visited by so dangerous a
neighbour; or in failure thereof, to put an early