Medica Sacra E-Book

Mead

• Herausgeber: Science & Technology Publishing
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 127

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

Medica Sacra: Or, A Commentary on the Most Remarkable Diseases Mentioned in the Holy Scriptures is a fascinating and scholarly work by Richard Mead, first published in the 18th century. This book offers a unique intersection of theology, history, and medicine, providing readers with a detailed analysis of the various diseases and afflictions referenced throughout the Bible. Drawing upon his expertise as a renowned physician, Mead meticulously examines the symptoms, causes, and possible modern equivalents of ailments described in both the Old and New Testaments, such as leprosy, plague, demonic possession, and the illnesses of biblical figures like Job, King Saul, and King Hezekiah. The author approaches each case with a blend of scientific rigor and respect for the scriptural context, seeking to demystify the medical phenomena that were often attributed to supernatural causes in ancient times. Mead’s commentary not only sheds light on the medical knowledge of the biblical era but also explores the cultural and religious significance of disease and healing in the Judeo-Christian tradition. The book is enriched with references to classical literature, contemporary medical theories, and historical accounts, making it a valuable resource for theologians, historians, medical professionals, and lay readers interested in the confluence of faith and science. Medica Sacra stands as a testament to the enduring curiosity about the natural world and the human condition, as seen through the lens of scripture. Its comprehensive and thoughtful analysis invites readers to reconsider familiar biblical stories with a new perspective, deepening their understanding of both ancient medicine and the spiritual narratives that have shaped Western civilization.

Leseprobe

MEDICA SACRA;OR, ACOMMENTARYOn the most remarkable DISEASES,Mentioned in theHOLY SCRIPTURES.

By RICHARD MEAD,

Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians at London and Edinburgh, and of the Royal Society, and Physician to his Majesty.

Translated from the Latin,

Under the AUTHOR’s Inspection,

By THOMAS STACK, M.D.F.R.S.

LONDON:

Printed for J. Brindley, late Bookseller to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, in New Bond-street. M DCCLV.

THE CONTENTS.

M

emoirs of the life and writings of the learned author

The preface

I.

The disease of

Job

page 1

II.

The leprosy

13

III.

The disease of king

Saul

28

IV.

The disease of king

Joram; Jehoram

34

V.

The disease of king

Ezekias; Hezekiah

36

VI.

The disease of old age

38

VII.

The disease of king

Nebuchadnezzar

57

VIII.

The paralysy, palsy

62

IX.

Of demoniacs

73

X.

Of lunatics

93

XI.

The issue of blood in a woman

103

XII.

Weakness of the back, with a rigidity of the spine back bone

104

XIII.

The bloody sweat of

Christ

106

XIV.

The disease of

Judas

108

XV.

The disease of king

Herod

113

Πἁντα δοχιμἁζετε τὸ καλὸν κατἑχετε.D. Paul. 1 Ep. ad Thessal. v. 21.Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.

Books wrote by the late learned Dr. MEAD, and sold by J. Brindley, Bookseller, in New Bond Street.

English Pieces, viz.

I. A Mechanical Account of Poisons in several Essays, 4th Edition. Price 5s. 1747

II. A Discourse on the Plague, 9th Edit. Price 4s. 1744

III. —— on the Small Pox and Measles; to which is annexed, a Treatise on the same Disease by the celebrated Arab. Phys. Abubeker Rhazes. Price 4s.

IV. —— on the Scurvy; to which is annexed, An historical Account of a new Method for extracting the foul Air out of Ships, &c. with the Description and Draught of the Machines by which it is performed: In two Letters to a friend. By Samuel Sutton, the Inventor. Price 3s 6d 1749

V. —— on the Influence of the Sun and Moon upon human Bodies, and the Diseases thereby produced. 4s 1748

VI. Medical Precepts and Cautions. Price 5s. 1751

VII. A Commentary on the Diseases mentioned in the Holy Scriptures. Price 4s. 1755

The above seven Discourses are all translated under the Author’s Inspection, by Dr.Stack, M.D.F.R.S.

Latin Pieces, viz.

VIII. De Variolis & Morbillis Liber, huic accessit Rhazes Medici inter Arabas celeberrimi, de iisdem Morbis Commentarius. Price 4s. 1747

IX. De Imperio Solis ac Lunæ in Corpora Humana, & Morbis inde Oriundis, Editio Altera, Auctior. & Emendatior. Price 4s. 1746

X. Medica Sacra; sive de Morbis Insignioribus qui in Bibliis memorantur Commentarius. Price 3s 6d 1749

XI. Monita & Precepta Medica. Price 4s 6d 1751

N. B. The above are to be had either in Sets, uniformly bound, or separate.

MEMOIRSOF THELIFE and WRITINGSOf the Late Dr. MEAD.

T is a natural, nor can it be deemed an illaudable curiosity to be desirous of being informed of whatever relates to those who have eminently distinguished themselves for sagacity, parts, learning, or what else may have exalted their characters, and thereby entitled them to a degree of respect superior to the rest of their cotemporaries. The transmission of such particulars, has ever been thought no more than discharging a debt due to posterity; wherefore it is hoped, that what is here intended to be offered to the publick, relative to a gentleman, who is universally allowed to have merited so largely in the republic of letters, and more particularly in his own profession, a profession, not less useful than respectable, will not be judged impertinent or disagreeable.

Our learned author was descended from a distinguished family in Buckinghamshire, and born at Stepney the second of August 1673. His father, Mr. Matthew Mead, was held in great esteem as a divine among the presbyterians, and was possessed, during their usurped power, of the living of Stepney; from whence he was ejected the second year after the restoration of king Charles the IId. Nevertheless, tho’ he had fifteen children, of whom our Richard was the seventh, he found means, with a moderate fortune, to give them a compleat education. To this purpose he kept a tutor in his house to instruct them, and they were taught latin rather by practice than by rules.

Party-rage perhaps never run higher than about the latter end of Charles the IId’s reign; hereby this little domestic academy was dispersed in 1683. The king, or rather his ministers, were determined to be revenged on those, whom they could not prevail on to concur with their measures. Mr. Mead (the father) was accused of being concerned in some designs against the court; wherefore being conscious that even his being a presbyterian, rendered him obnoxious to those in power, he chose rather to consult his security by a retreat, then to rely upon his innocence; to this purpose he sought and found that repose in Holland, which was denied him in his own country; having first placed his son Richard at a school, under the tuition of an able master of his own principles: under whose care our young gentleman, by a ready genius, strong memory, and close application, made a great proficiency. At seventeen years of age he was sent to Utrecht, to be further instructed in liberal knowledge, by the celebrated Grævius, with whom he continued three years.

Having determined to devote his attention to medicine, he removed from Utrecht to Leyden, where he attended Dr. Herman’s botanical lectures, and was initiated into the theory and practice of physick, by the truely eminent Dr. Pitcairn, who then held the professorial chair of this science in that university: here our young student’s assiduity and discernment, so effectually recommended him to the professor, who was not very communicative of his instructions out of the college, that he established a lasting correspondence with him, and received several observations from him, which he inserted in one of his subsequent productions.

His academical studies being finished, Mr. Mead sought further accomplishments in Italy, whither he was accompanied by his elder brother,[1] Mr. Polhill, and Dr. Thomas Pellet, afterwards president of the college of physicians.

In the course of this tour, Mr. Mead commenced doctor in philosophy and medicine at Padua, the twenty-sixth of August 1695, and afterwards spent some time at Naples and Rome: how advantageous to himself, as well as how useful to mankind he rendered his travels, his works bear ample testimony.

About the middle of the year 1696, he returned home, and settled at Stepney, in the neighbourhood where he was born: the success, he met with in his practice here, established his reputation, and was a happy presage of his future fortunes. If it be remembered, that our author was, when he began to practise, no more than twenty-three years old, that only three years, including the time taken up in his travels, were appropriated to his medical attainments, it may be, not unreasonably, admitted, that nothing but very uncommon talents, join’d to an extraordinary assiduity, could have enabled him to distinguish himself, at this early a period of life, in so extensive, and so important a science.

In 1702, Dr. Mead exhibited to the public, a manifest evidence of his capacity for, as well as application to medical researches, in his mechanical account of poisons; which he informs us was begun some years before he had leisure to publish it. These subjects, our author justly observes, had been treated hitherto very obscurely, to place therefore the surprizing phœnomena, arising from these active bodies in a more intelligible light, was his professed intention; how well he succeeded, the reception this piece universally met with, even from its first publication,[2] sufficiently declares. In 1708 he gave a new edition of it, with some few additions, the principal of which consists in some strictures on the external use of mercury in raising salivations. He has considerably further explained his sentiments upon the same head, in the edition of this work printed in 1747.

This last edition has received so many additions and alterations, as might almost entitle it to the character of a new performance.——A stiffness of opinion has been but too commonly observed, especially among writers on science; and age has been seldom found to have worn out this pertinacity: a favourite hypothesis has been defended even in opposition to the most obvious experiments, with a degree of obstinacy ever incompatible with the real interests of truth. On the contrary, our ingenious author has set before his literary successors, an example of sagacity and fortitude, truely worthy of imitation, in the victory he obtained over these self-sufficient pre-possessions; length of years was so far from rivetting in him an inflexibility of sentiment, that, joined to a most extended experience, it served only to teach him, that he had been mistaken: his candid retraction of what he thought to have been advanced amiss by himself, cannot be better expressed than in his own words. “Neither have I, says he,[3] been ashamed on some occasions, (as the Latins said) cædere vineta mea, to retrench or alter whatever I judged to be wrong. Dies diem docet. I think truth never comes so well recommended, as from one who owns his error: and it is allowed that our first master never shewed more wisdom and greatness of mind, then in confessing his mistake, in taking a fracture of a skull, for the natural suture;[4] and the compliment, which Celsus[5] makes to him on this occasion, is very remarkable and just;” nor is it less applicable to Dr. Mead at present than it was to the Coan sage in his day. “More scilicet, inquit, magnorum virorum, & fiduciam magnarum rerum habentium. Nam levia ingenia, quia nihil habent, nihil sibi detrahunt: magno ingenio, multaque nihilominus habituro, convenit etiam simplex veri erroris confessio; præcipueque in eo ministerio, quod utilitatis causâ posteris traditur.”

The insertion of additions and improvements in the title of new editions of books, has been too generally, though sometimes justly, understood as little else than a contrivance of the bookseller, to animate a languishing sale; but this is far from being the case in respect to the works of our author, whose maturer sentiments on many of the subjects, he had before treated of, cannot be well comprehended, unless by a careful perusal of his later corrections, seeing the alterations he has thought fit thereby to make in his earlier productions, are not less necessary to be attended to by the prudent practitioner, than they are really interesting to the unhappy patient: the truth of which cannot be more manifestly evinced, than by his last publication of his essays on poisons; wherein he entirely subverts his former hypothesis, and builds his reasonings upon a new foundation; he also tacitly admits his former experiments to have been too precipitately made, and the conclusions deduced from them, to have been too hastily drawn.

To illustrate what has been advanced upon this head, it will not be improper to observe, that when Dr. Mead first wrote these essays, he was of opinion, “That the effect of poisons, especially those of venemous animals, might be accounted for, by their affecting the blood only: but the consideration of the suddenness of their mischief, too quick to be brought about in the course of the circulation, (for the bite of a rattle snake killed a dog in less than a quarter of an hour)[6] together with the nature of the symptoms entirely nervous, induced him to change his sentiments,[7]” and to conclude, that the poison must be conveyed by a medium of much greater quickness, which could be no other than the animal spirits.

From hence our author is led to prefix to the last edition of this performance, an inquiry into the existence and nature of this imperceptible fluid, with which we have been but very imperfectly acquainted. He has also added several new experiments, tending to confirm this theory, and explain the properties of the viperine venom, particularly by venturing to taste it; at the same time he has likewise contradicted some of those he had formerly made, whereby he had been induced to believe, this poison partook of a degree of acidity: for instance, he formerly asserted that he had seen this sanies, “as an acid, turn the blue tincture of heliotropium, to a red colour;[8]” whereas his more modern trials convinced him, it produced no alteration at all.

The essays on the tarantula and mad dog, are likewise considerably enlarged in the last impression; especially the latter, in which is now comprehended a regular and elegant history of the symptoms attending the bite of this enraged animal, the reason of the consequent hydrophobia, and more extensive directions for the cure: also an accurate description of the lichen cinereus terrestris, its efficacy, and manner of acting. A composition of equal parts of this plant and black pepper, was inserted, at our author’s desire, into the London dispensatory, in the year 1721, under the title of pulvis antilyssus, which he afterwards altered by using two parts of the former, and only one of the latter, as it now stands: in 1735 he also recommended the use of this medicine in a loose sheet, intitled, a certain cure for the bite of a mad dog.

In treating of poisonous minerals, exclusive of what is added concerning mercurial unctions, our author has given a new analysis of the antient and modern arsenic; and his essay on deliterious plants, has afforded him an opportunity of enquiring into the cicuta, so much in use of old for killing, especially at Athens, and which is said to have been administered to Socrates in consequence of his condemnation. To this he has likewise subjoin’d an appendix, concerning the mischievous effects of the simple water distilled from the lauro-cerasus, or common laurel, which were first observed some years since in Ireland, where, for the sake of its flavour, it was frequently mixed with brandy.—His observations upon venemous exhalations, are not less extended, nor ought the, as well useful as ornamental, plates added to this last edition, to pass unnoticed, particularly, “The anatomical description of the parts in a viper, and in a rattlesnake, which are concerned in their poison,” by our great anatomist the learned and ingenious Dr. Nichols.

In 1703 Dr. Mead communicated to the royal society, a letter published in Italy in 1687 (a copy of which he met with in the course of his travels) from Dr. Bonomo to Seignor Redi, containing some observations concerning the worms of human bodies;[9] whereby it is intended to prove, that the disease, we call the itch, proceeds merely from the biting of these animalcules: this opinion is espoused by our author in one of his latest performances,[10] wherein therefore he directs only topicalapplications for the cure of this troublesome disease.

The proofs our young physician had already given of literary merit, recommended him soon after the above-mentioned communication, to a seat among that learned body; in the same year he was also elected one of the physicians of St. Thomas’s hospital, and was employed by the surgeons company to read anatomical lectures at their hall, which he continued to do for some years.