Shortt, Henry Edward (1887-1987)

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future.

Papers of Henry Shortt including:

Papers relating to nomenclature of malaria parasites, 1930s-1940s

Correspondence and reports as Area Administrator in Assam, 1940s, his work with refugees from Burma [Myanmar]

Correspondence relating to his career and research, primarily regarding malaria and parasitology, 1940s-1980s

Correspondence and reports on Colombo plan, 1950s

Papers relating to the establishment of the Public Health Institute at Dacca, 1950s

Records of experiments relating to ticks (babesia canis), 1962-1969

Reports and drawings relating to babesia canis research, 1970s-1980s

Writings relating predominantly to babesia, primate malaria, and trypanosomiasis, late 1940s-1960s

Lectures and reprints, both his own and others

Photographs and lantern slides, both of himself and colleagues at various institutions and events and relating to his scientific research, 1920s-1960s.

Correspondence and papers regarding honours and awards

1920s-1980s

Uncatalogued: 9 archive boxes, 2 transfer boxes and 8 extracted items

The archives were given to the library at Wellcome Collection by the family of Henry Edward Shortt in February 1995.

Henry Edward Shortt CIE, FRS, MD, DTM&H was born in Punjab in April 1887. He studied medicine at Aberdeen University before entering the Indian Medical Service as a medical officer in 1912. In 1914 he went to the Mesopotamia Expeditionary Force and then joined the Central Reference Library in Basra in 1916. Between 1926-1931 Shortt was Director of the Indian Commission on Kala-azar, followed by Director of the Pasteur Institute of India, 1931-1934, and Director of the King Institute of Preventive Medicine Madras, 1935-1939. During the Second World War he became Inspector-General of civil hospitals and prisons in Assam.

Following the war Shorrt became Reader in Medical Parasitology at the University of London, before moving to the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in 1947 as Professor of Protozoology and Director of the Department of Parasitology. He retired in 1951 but continued with his research in Nairobi, London, and India, where he established an institute of public health in Dacca. He died in 1987.

Shortt's research work concentrated on parasites and he played an important role in the eradication of Leishmaniasis also known as kala-azar or dum-dum fever. During the 1930s he also worked on rabies, smallpox, antivenin and cholera. Shortt is also credited with being the first to describe the condition of fluorosis with rheumatism like symptoms, which Shortt traced to contaminated wells.

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