Dr RICHARD, an eminent English physician, was born at Stepney, near London, in 1675. At sixteen years of age he was sent to Utrecht, where he studied three years under the celebrated Graevius; and then choosing the profession of physic he went to Leyden, and attended the lectures of Pitcairn and Hermann. Having visited Padua in 1695 he took his degree of doctor of philosophy and physic; and returning home he settled at Stepney, and practised physic with great success.

In 1703 Dr Mead was elected a member of the Royal Society, of which Sir Isaac Newton was then president. The same year he was elected physician of St Thomas's Hospital, and was also employed by the surgeons to read anatomical lectures in their hall. In 1707 his Paduan diploma for doctor of physic was confirmed by the university of Oxford; and on the death of Dr Radcliffe, Mead enjoyed the most extensive practice of any physician of his day. In 1727 he was made physician to George II., whom he had served in that capacity whilst he was Prince of Wales.

During almost half a century he was at the head of his profession, and he was admired no less as a man than as a physician. His reputation, not only as a physician, but as a scholar, was so universally established, that he corresponded with the principal literati in Europe. It was principally to him that the several counties of England, and our colonies abroad, applied for the choice of their physicians, and he was likewise consulted by foreign physicians from Russia, Prussia, Denmark, and other countries. Mead's principal works are,—A Mechanical Account of Poisons, 1702; De imperio Solis et Lunae in Corpora Humana, et Morbis inde oriundis, 1704; A short Discourse concerning Pestilential Contagion, 1720; On the Scurvy, 1749; On Small-pox and Measles, 1748; Medicina Sacra seu de Morbis insignioribus qui in Bibliis Memorantur, 1748; Monita et Praecepta Medica, 1751. His works, which were written in Latin, were afterwards translated into English by Dr Thomas Slack, and received the author's revision. They passed through many editions both in this country and on the Continent. (See Authentic Memoirs of the Life of Richard Mead, M.D., by Matthew Maty, M.D., 8vo, London, 1755.) This great physician, naturalist, and antiquary, died on the 16th of February 1754.