Page:Lives of British Physicians.djvu/177

 MEAD. 159 Mead, it is certain, that his amiable manners and fine accomplishments would enable him firmly to maintain his place. On the death of his protector, Mead moved into his house in Bloomsbury Square, and resigned the hospital. Two, days before the demise of Queen Anne, Mead was called to a trying situation, — to consult at the bedside of a dying sovereign. He possessed, however, not merely the professional knowledge, but also the intimacy with society, and the ready tact which the emergency demanded. Some in such situations find a protection in reserve, but Mead, either more penetrating or more decided than the other attendants on her majesty, no sooner was admitted to her presence, than he de- clared that she could not long survive. Finding it difficult to obtain assent, he intimated, that it would be sufficient to send to Hanover an account of the symptoms, from which the physicians at- tached to that court would at once perceive, that before the detail reached them, the subject of it must have ceased to exist. Mead had frequently perceived the efficacy of purgatives in preventing or diminishing the se- condary fever, in cases of confluent small-pox, and in 1747 he printed his " Treatise on the Small- Pox and Measles," in Latin. The purity and ele- gance of style exhibited in this work have attracted the admiration of scholars. He subjoined a "Trans- ition from Khazes," in order to shew the con- formity existing between the practice of the Ara- bians and that recommended by Sydenham and Freind. Boerhaave, with whom Mead had kept up a constant correspondence, supplied him with