John Shortt Explained

John Shortt (26 February 1822 – 24 April 1889) was an Anglo-Indian physician who served in the Madras Presidency in southern India. He conducted research on snake venoms and wrote on a variety of other subjects including anthropology, agriculture, and animal husbandry. A species of shieldtail snake endemic to the Shevaroy Hills is named after him, Uropeltis shorttii.

Biography

Shortt was the son of Rose (1789-1841) and John Shortt (died November 9, 1837[1]). Shortt (senior) had joined the Madras Army as an ensign in 1760, became a Major in 1778 and retired 'invalided' as conductor of ordinance at Vellore.[2] Shortt (junior) was christened on 20 May 1822 at Arcot. He may have been among the first students trained in Madras as apothecaries[3] before he joined the East India Company Service in Madras as an Assistant Apothecary on 20 January 1846. He was then sent for training in medicine to Aberdeen, and received a MD from King's College in 1854 apart from qualifying MRCS and LSA. He was supported by a sum of £400 from an officer who had been saved from cholera by Shortt. An introduction letter from Hugh Cleghorn to J.H. Balfour noted that Shortt was an "Anglo-Indian" and that allowance be made for his "colour and manners."[4] He also received a degree in veterinary medicine, becoming a member of the college of veterinary surgeons, Edinburgh in 1854. Returning to India, he was appointed assistant surgeon at Madras in September 1854. He served as a superintendent of vaccination for a while before being promoted Surgeon in 1866, Surgeon Major in 1873, and finally retired on 12 February 1878. He moved to Yercaud where he remained until his death.[5] [6] He was elected Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1860. His proposers included John J. Bennet, John Edward Gray, George Robert Gray, William Baird, Thomas Moore and Thomas Spencer Cobbold.[7]

Shortt married Isabella née Cursett (died 25 May 1854 aged 22) in Madras in 1848. A daughter Isabella married John Archibald Duncan McDougall in Madras in 1872.[8] His second wife Ellen Julia Annie née Blyth (1843 - 8 July 1865) was buried at St Mary's Cemetery, Madras.[9] He married Annie Julia Henrietta née Rogers (1851-1909) on 9 September 1875 at Bangalore.

Scholarly contributions

While working as a superintendent of vaccines, Shortt designed a modified vaccination needle.[10] He also translated William Campbell Maclean's treatise on smallpox into Tamil in 1857 and into Telugu in 1858. Shortt took a keen interest in snakes and snakebites from at least 1863 onwards. He conducted snake envenomation experiments on dogs and other animals.[11] He examined folk remedies such as snake stones and concluded that “There is no truth in the virtues attributed to the snake stone, for it has neither the power to absorb or otherwise neutralize the snake poison from the wound.” He collected specimens of snakes, and collaborated with others who took an interest in snakebite such as Joseph Fayrer to whom he sent specimens of Trimeresurus annamalaiensis.[12] He also sent specimens to Richard Henry Beddome who described Uropeltis shorttii, a shieldtail snake endemic to the Shevaroys.[13]

Shortt took an interest in the people of the regions that he worked in, writing about aboriginal tribes, festivals, Armenian settlers,[14] devdasis, and in later life took an interest in physical anthropology. He sent 20 skulls belonging to members of the Maravar tribe to the Anthropological Society of Paris. While posted to Ganjam as a physician to the Great Trigonometrical Survey around 1855-56, he studied the local tribes.[15] He also wrote extensively on medical topics mainly in the Madras Quarterly (later Monthly) Journal of Medical Science. He also treated animals in his practice, and maintained indigenous breeds of livestock and studied them. This resulted in his Manual of Indian Cattle and Sheep first published in 1876 and went into two further editions.

Natural history was a major interest, he described a branching palm, the nest of the arboreal Crematogaster sp. ants,[16] a note on the Vedanthangal heronry,[17] plants used as food during famines,[18] [19] and proposed poisoning tigers in Sathyamangalam with strychnine.[20]

Writings

An incomplete list of his publications include:

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Cotton, Julian James . Inscriptions on tombs or monuments in Madras. . 1905 . Madras . 292.
  2. Book: Report on the Palk Manuscripts in the Possession of Mrs Bannatyne of Haldon, Devon. 365. 1922 .
  3. Raman . Ramya . Raman . Anantanarayanan . 2016 . Early decades of Madras Medical College: Apothecaries . The National Medical Journal of India . 29 . 2 . 98–102 . 0970-258X . 27586218.
  4. Noltie, H.J. . 2018 . An Album of Trichinopoly Bird Paintings . The Linnean . 34 . 2 . 15–22.
  5. Book: 111. A history of the Indian Medical Service 1600-1913. Volume II.. Crawford, D.G.. London. W. Thacker and Co.. 1914.
  6. Book: Crawford, D.G.. Roll of the Indian Medical Service 1615-1930. W. Thacker and Co.. 1930. London. 344.
  7. Book: Scharlieb, Mary . Reminiscences . Williams & Norgate . 1924 . London . 30-31.
  8. Web site: India, Madras Diocese Protestant Church Records, 1743-1990 . Family Search.
  9. Book: List of tombs and monuments of Europeans, &c., in the Madras District. Government Press. 1898. Madras. 27.
  10. Shortt. John. 1876-11-11. Description of a needle-vaccinator. The Lancet. English. 108. 2776. 677–678. 10.1016/S0140-6736(02)49533-5. 0140-6736.
  11. Shortt, J.. 1868. Experiments with the poison of the cobra di capella.. The Lancet. 91. 2333 . 556–557. 10.1016/S0140-6736(02)60589-6.
  12. Fayrer, Joseph. 1870. The thanatophidia of India. The Indian Medical Gazette. 5. 12. 237–240. 28996376 . 5165543.
  13. Beddome, R.H. . 1863 . Descriptions of new species of the family Uropeltidae from Southern India, with notes on other little known species . Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London . 225–229.
  14. Shortt. John. 1870. The Armenians of Southern India. The Journal of Anthropology. 1. 2. 180–187. 10.2307/3024830. 3024830 . 1356-0123.
  15. Shortt . John . 1865 . An Account of a Wild Tribe Inhabiting Some Parts of Orissa, and Known as "Juags" and "Bathuas", or "Leaf Wearers" . Journal of the Anthropological Society of London . 3 . cxxxiv–cxli . 10.2307/3025316 . 3025316 . 1356-0131.
  16. Shortt, J.. 1865. A brief account of the Myrmica Kirbii as found in Southern India.. Journal of the Linnean Society Zoology. 8. 30 . 100–102. 10.1111/j.1096-3642.1865.tb02424.x .
  17. Shortt, J.. 1865. Account of a heronry, and breeding-place of other water birds. Journal of the Linnean Society Zoology. 8. 94–100. 10.1111/j.1096-3642.1865.tb02423.x .
  18. Book: Shortt, J. . [List of wild plants eaten by the poor during drought and famine] ]. 1877 . Madras.
  19. Shortt, James . 1878 . List of wild plants and vegetables used as food by people in famine times. . Indian Forester . 3 . 232–238.
  20. Book: Fayrer, J. . Destruction of life by wild animals and venomous snakes in India. Paper read before the Indian Section of the Society of Arts, Friday, February 1, 1878 . 1878.
  21. Shortt. John. 1867. An Account of the Sclerotium stipitatum (Berk. et Curr.) of Southern India.. Journal of the Linnean Society of London, Botany. en. 9. 39. 417–419. 10.1111/j.1095-8339.1867.tb01305.x.

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