author
Richard Mead
1673–1754
Best remembered as one of Georgian England’s leading physicians, he helped shape early thinking about contagion and public health. He also became famous in his own lifetime for treating prominent patients and building a remarkable library and art collection.
4 Audiobooks
A Short Discourse Concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Methods to Be Used to Prevent It
by Richard Mead
Medica Sacra Or, A Commentary on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned in the Holy Scriptures
by Richard Mead
A Discourse on the Plague
by Richard Mead
A Mechanical Account of Poisons in Several Essays
by Richard Mead
About the author
Born in Stepney, London, in 1673, Richard Mead studied in Utrecht and later earned his medical degree at Padua before establishing himself in London. He went on to become one of the most respected doctors in Britain, serving at St Thomas’s Hospital and being elected a Fellow of the Royal Society.
Mead is especially associated with preventive medicine. His 1720 work on plague and contagion was widely influential, and he also wrote on poisons, smallpox, and other medical subjects. Contemporary accounts and later histories describe him not only as a successful physician but also as a generous patron of learning, books, and art.
His patients included some of the best-known figures of his age, and his reputation remained strong long after his death in 1754. For readers today, he stands out as a vivid example of the learned, public-minded doctor in early eighteenth-century Britain.