mead is satirised in laurence sterne's novel, "tristram shandy", where he briefly appears as dr kunastrokius: "—did not dr. kunastrokius, that great man, at his leisure hours, take the greatest delight imaginable in combing of asses' tails, and plucking the dead hairs out with his teeth, though he had tweezers always in his pocket?" the name kunastrokius is clearly a sexual pun, perhaps referencing voltaire's cunegund of candide (1759). one of sterne's correspondents later complained that he was reviving widespread rumours that mead had gone bankrupt due to paying for elaborate sexual favours. sterne defended himself on the grounds that all he did was "most distantly hint at a droll foible in his character...known before by every chamber-maid and footman within the bills of mortality".