ABSTRACT

The first part of the chapter outlines the issues I am addressing and seeks to place them in a wider historiographical context. The second part takes as its focus Richard Mead (1673-1754), the prominent London physician, who was a highly successful practitioner, a well-known collector and a noted public figure. While he enjoyed extensive contacts with literary, scholarly and artistic men, Mead’s considerable reputation did not rest mainly on his publications. However, one of his books is pertinent here, a volume entitled Medica Sacra: Or, a Commentary on the most Remarkable Diseases, Mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. This was first published in Latin in 1749, appearing in an English translation in 1755, a year after Mead’s death. Mead’s context can be sketched in by noting that he was the son of a famous Nonconformist divine; that he belonged to the generation that grew up with the key achievements of the ‘scientific revolution’ in place; that he was a Newtonian, and close to Newton (1642-1727) personally; and that he was involved in a number of intellectual networks by virtue of his wide interests. It was through these that he became friendly with the wonderful Scottish artist Allan Ramsay (1713-84), to whom he was a patron, friend and mentor, and by whom he was painted in a glorious canvas of 1747, which hangs next to Hogarth’s portrait of Thomas Coram (16687-1751) in the Foundling Hospital, with which Mead was associated as a founding governor.2