Welcome to The Sloane Letters Project
A pilot of this project, Sir Hans Sloane’s Correspondence Online, was first launched at the University of Saskatchewan in 2010 to coincide with the 350th anniversary of Sir Hans Sloane’s birth. The project was renamed The Sloane Letters Project when it moved to this site in 2016.
The correspondence of Sir Hans Sloane (1660-1753) consists of thirty-eight volumes held at the British Library, London: MSS 4036-4069, 4075-4078. The letters are a rich source of information about topics such as scientific discourse, collections of antiquities, curiosities and books, patients’ illnesses, medical treatments and family history. Most of the letters were addressed to Sloane, but a few volumes were addressed to others (MSS 4063-4067) or written by Sloane (MSS 4068-4069).
So far, we have entered descriptions and metadata for Sloane MSS 4036-4053 and 4075, as well as several letters from each of the following: Sloane MSS 4054-4055, 4066, 4068-4069 and 4076. Several of these entries also include transcriptions. Further entries and transcriptions are being made available gradually.
Please, explore the website and database. You can search through the letters, learn about Sir Hans Sloane or the letters written to him, and peruse blog posts about interesting letters!
Random Letter
Author:Recipient:
Fol. 68
I hope you will excuse my giving you this trouble when I tell you it is to aske yr advice for my Ld who has been out of order above this three months with a wheezing and oppression on his lungs, he thinks it came first by a cold, and has been blooded purged and vomited, but has found no benefit by it, he thinks his illness proceeds from a heat in his blood because upon any ill digestion he is worse, he has a constant heat and dryness and oppression on his lungs, he complains most when he lyes on his left side of the wheezing. He did not eat meat for two days and only drank milk porridge and rice milk and he thought himself much better, but upon eating meat this two or three days he has found an ill digestion and his wheezing and oppression returnd as bad as ever therefore I beg to have yr advice as soon as possible for my Ld having had this complaint so long upon him makes me very uneasy till it is removed which I have great hopes of from what you will order him and in doing which you will lay a gt obligation on…
My Ld has drank asses milk this two mornings and I desire to know if you think that proper for him.
[Sloane: venesect. emet. tinct. decoct. ammoniac. fontanelle super scapular]
Read more- Letter 2592
Latest Statistics
| Pages digitised | |
| 4,545 | Document summaries |
| Documents transcribed | |
| People | |
| 1,527 | Medical Cases |
| Places |