One of his greatest pleasures was in his extensive herbarium, rich with the native plants of Kentucky collected by himself, as well as with those from other regions obtained by the exchange of specimens with the various botanists of the world, with whom he corresponded individually and extensively. He, in conjunction with Professors H. H. Eaton, H. A. Griswold, and R. Peter, contributed to the _Transylvania Journal of Medicine_ several papers on the plants of Kentucky,[55] and wrote for that periodical several papers on this subject and on medical topics, as well as numerous obituary notices of medical men. He was not the author of any large treatise. In addition to his notices and catalogues of Kentucky plants he published in the _Transylvania Medical Journal_: "Instructions for Gathering and Preservation of Plants in Herbaria." "Botanical Bibliography." 1835. "A Brief Historical Sketch of the Origin and Progress of Cholera Asphyxia." 1835. "A Sketch of the Progress of Botany in Western America." In 1845, he wrote "Observations of the Botany of Illinois," published in the _Western Journal of Medicine and Surgery_. In the early volumes of the _Transylvania Journal_ also appeared his notices of two remarkable cases which occurred in Lexington. One, of supposed _spontaneous combustion of the human body_, and the other of _paralysis of the kidneys_. At his death his vast collection of botanical specimens, in the formation of which he took such delight, and to which he had devoted so great a portion of his life, was bequeathed to the Smithsonian Institution at Washington, but there was no appropriate place there in which to display so large a collection. It is now in possession of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. During his life no less than five of the distinguished botanists of the age honored his name by attaching it to six new genera and species of plants. [Illustration: DOCTOR CHARLES WILKINS SHORT.] His lectures to the medical students on Materia Medica and Medical Botany he always read from his manuscript, which detracted somewhat from his impressiveness. He was too modest to trust himself to oral discourses.[56] Yet his pupils were always closely attentive and respectful, holding him and his teachings in high esteem.[57] He was Dean of the Medical Faculty in Transylvania for about ten years. For some years he was co-editor of the _Transylvania Journal of Medicine_ with Doctor Cooke. This quarterly they founded in Lexington in 1828. Doctor Short severed his connection with the Transylvania Medical School in 1838 to be allied with Doctors Caldwell, Cooke, and Yandell in the Medical Institute of Louisville,[58] in which he remained until 1849, when his colleagues elected him Emeritus Professor of Materia Medica and Botany. He died at his beautiful country residence, "Hayfield," near Louisville, on March 7, 1863, aged sixty-nine years.