author
Richard Mead
1673–1754
A celebrated English physician of the early 1700s, he became known for writing about plague, contagion, and prevention at a time when those ideas carried enormous practical weight. He was also a prominent collector and a trusted doctor to many of the leading figures of his age.
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 London in 1673, Richard Mead grew into one of the best-known physicians in Britain. He studied on the Continent, took his medical degree at Padua in 1695, and later also received an Oxford M.D. His career included work at St Thomas’ Hospital, and he built a reputation as a learned, highly connected doctor in London society.
Mead is especially remembered for his writing on infectious disease. His 1720 book A Short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, and the Method to be used to prevent it was influential in the history of preventive medicine and in early thinking about how diseases spread. He also wrote on subjects such as smallpox and measles, showing the wide range of his medical interests.
Beyond medicine, he was known as an important collector of books, manuscripts, coins, and works of art. That mix of scientific authority, public influence, and broad cultural curiosity helped make him one of the standout medical figures of 18th-century Britain.