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
assiduity 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 assiduity, 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 phoenomena, arising from these activ