Letter 4394

Short’s previous letter concerned the mineral waters of Yorkshire and Berkshire, which he ‘examined at the spring head’. He has seen them cure ‘three fourths’ of distempers that are regularly treated with mineral waters. Short discusses mineral waters in great detail. Thomas Short was a Scottish physician who settled in Sheffield. He traveled throughout England examining the medical effects of mineral waters and published works promoting their use in 1725 and 1766 (Norman Moore, Short, Thomas (c.16901772), rev. Patrick Wallis, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2004 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/25461, accessed 24 July 2013]).