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 stop to the progress of the infection. Dr. _Mead_, whose deserved reputation may not unjustly be said to have merited that mark of distinction, was consulted on these critical and important points, by command of their excellencies, the lords justices of the kingdom, in his majesty’s absence: how equal he was to this momentous talk, sufficiently appears from the discourse he published on that occasion: the approbation this performance met with, may be estimated from the reception it universally found; seven impressions were sold of it in the space of one year, and in the beginning of 1722, the author gave an eighth, to which he prefixed a long preface, particularly calculated to refute what had been advanced in _France_, concerning the absence of contagion in the malady that had afflicted them: he also now added a more distinct description of the plague, and its causes; and confirmed the utility of the measures he had recommended, for preventing its extension, from examples of good success, where the same had been put in practice: to these he has likewise annexed, a short chapter relating to the cure of this deplorable affliction.--In 1744, this work was carried to a ninth edition, wherein, to use the doctor’s own