Shew was born in Providence, Saratoga County. He worked in a daguerreotype shop in Philadelphia and obtained his medical degree in 1843.[2] Shew took interest in hydrotherapy and visited Gräfenberg to study Vincenz Priessnitz's techniques.[3][4] His wife, Marie Louise Shew was also a hydrotherapist. They were friends of Mary Gove Nichols who had temporarily lodged at their house. The Shews operated a hydrotherapy "water-cure" house and opened it to patients.[2]
In 1844, Shew established the first water-cure institution in New York City.[3] In May 1845, he opened the New Lebanon Springs Water-Cure Establishment, which cost about US$3,000.[5] He was the co-owner and advising physician. David Campbell was its manager for ten years.[5] Shew was influenced by the dieting ideas of Sylvester Graham and promoted natural hygiene practices such as bathing, exercise and massage as well as the elimination of alcohol and tobacco.[3] Historian Stephen Nissenbaum has noted "it is clear that Shew was a Grahamite before he discovered the water-cure".[6] Shew and his wife were vegetarian.[7]
In 1850, Shew wrote notes and additions for the American edition of William Lambe's Water and Vegetable Diet.[8] He died at Oyster Bay, Long Island.[1]Anautopsy revealed an enlarged liver and internal lesions. This may have been caused by the chemicals he was exposed to during his earlier career as a photographer.[9]
In 1845, Shew launched The Water-Cure Journal. After 1850, it had a subscription list of 50,000.[3]Russell Trall edited the journal from 1849 and it was later renamed, The Herald of Health.[10][11][12]
^ abKelly, Howard A; Burrage, Walter L. (1920). American Medical Biographies. Baltimore: The Norman, Remington company. p. 1045
^ abSilver-Isenstadt, Jean L. (2002). Shameless: The Visionary Life of Mary Gove Nichols. Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 76. ISBN0-8018-6848-3
^ abcdEngs, Ruth Clifford. (2000). Clean Living Movements: American Cycles of Health Reform. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 96. ISBN0-275-97541-X
^Schwarz, Richard W. (2006). John Harvey Kellogg, M.D.: Pioneering Health Reformer. Review and Herald Publishing Association. pp. 25-26. ISBN0-8280-1039-8, 0-8280-1939-8
^ abMarchese, Allison Guertin. (2014). Hidden History of Columbia County, New York. The History Press. p. 94. ISBN978-1626193956
^Nissenbaum, Stephen. (1980). Sex, Diet, and Debility in Jacksonian America: Sylvester Graham and Health Reform. Greenwood Press. p. 156. ISBN978-0313214158
^Shprintzen, Adam D. (2013). The Vegetarian Crusade: The Rise of an American Reform Movement, 1817-1921. University of North Carolina Press. p. 55. ISBN978-1-4696-0891-4
^Hoolihan, Christopher. (2001). An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine and Health Reform, Volume 1. University of Rochester Press. p. 603. ISBN1-58046-098-4
^Wrobel, Arthur. (1987). Pseudo-Science and Society in 19th-Century America. p. 81. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN978-0-8131-5544-9
^Whorton, James C. (2002). Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. Oxford University Press. pp. 90-91. ISBN0-19-514071-0
^Hoolihan, Christopher. (2008). An Annotated Catalogue of the Edward C. Atwater Collection of American Popular Medicine and Health Reform, Volume 3. University of Rochester Press. p. 344. ISBN978-1-58046-284-6
^Smith, Andrew F. (2009). Eating History: Thirty Turning Points in the Making of American Cuisine. Columbia University Press. p. 34. ISBN978-0-231-14092-8
