[1][2] He practiced ophthalmology in the North and West of England for many years, and by 1694, settled at York Buildings in Strand, London.

[3] He was known for his charlatan advertisements; for example, he claimed in the Tatler that "he had been thirty-five years in the practice of couching cataracts, taking off all sorts of wens, curing wry necks and hair-lips without blemish.

[2] A 1705 poem in honour of Read, "The Oculist" that appears in pamphlet form, is stored at the British Museum and the library of the Royal Society of Medicine.

[2] In 1706, Read authored a major work A Short But Exact Account of All the Diseases Incident to the Eyes.

Many years later in 1932, ophthalmologist Arnold Sorsby revealed that part of the book was plagiarized from Richard Banister's A Treatise of One Hundred and Thirteene Diseases of the Eyes, and Eye-liddes.