xi DR. RUTTY A QUAKER ASCETIC r 29 



settled at Dublin in the next year, and practised as a 

 physician of reputation in that city for many years, 

 dying unmarried in rooms at the east corner of Boot 

 Lane and St. Mary's Lane, in 1775. 



A man of studious habits throughout his whole life, 

 ardent and indefatigable, he wrote much, and his books 

 were solid contributions to knowledge. Fothergill, who 

 corresponded with him, aided him in his literary works. 

 He took especial interest in hydrology, compiling a 

 History of the Mineral Waters of Ireland, published in 

 I 757> which displays a mastery of his subject. He 

 enumerates about 125 springs in the country, and of 

 most of these he had made analyses, so far as chemical 

 science then allowed, giving tables of the reactions 

 obtained, and comparing them with some English and 

 foreign waters. Rutty classes the waters as chalybeate, 

 sulphureous, purging, vitriolic, tepid, petrifying and 

 alkaline. He goes on to point out the uses of the several 

 kinds in different diseases, and pleads for the employ- 

 ment of the Irish springs in many cases which resorted 

 to the more fashionable Spas elsewhere. This work was 

 followed by a larger one giving a methodical synopsis of 

 all mineral waters known throughout the world. Rutty 

 also communicated several papers to the Royal Society on 

 waters containing copper, sulphur, vitriol, etc. He wrote, 

 too, a Chronological History of the Weather, Seasons, 

 and Diseases in Dublin for forty years (1770), and a 

 Natural History of the County of Dublin (1772), in which 

 his fondness for natural science is revealed. Lastly, he 

 published in the year of his death an encyclopaedic work, 

 which is still referred to, embodying the researches of 

 many years Materia Medica, Antigua et Nova. 



Rutty was a Friend by strong conviction, and his 

 History of the Rise and Progress of the Quakers in Ireland 

 (to 1751) is of standard value. Serving as an elder (" a 

 whetstone " to the ministers, so he said), he often paid 

 family visits and spoke in counsel, and he was concerned 

 for the youth and the children, to whose interests he gave 

 up much time amidst his scholarly avocations. Late in 



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