PAA, you lost me there somewhere.
I lost myself too. For some reason I thought that the last quote said that Sumchus would give 48 reasons to be metamei something tahor and to be metaher something tamei and I therefore compared him to R’ Meir. In reality, though, the quote was saying that he would give 48 reasons to be metamei something tamei and be metaher something tahor. I apologize for the confusion.