American Medical Biographies/Shew, Joel
Shew, Joel (1816–1855)
Joel Shew, early advocate of hydropathy, was born in Providence, Saratoga County, New York, November 13, 1816. After receiving a medical degree he went to Graefenberg, Austrian Silesia, where he became an advocate of Vincent Priessnitz's system of water cure and introduced it into the United States; he was physician to the first hydropathic institution opened in New York in 1844 and the next year became manager of an institution of the same kind in New Lebanon Springs, New York.
He wrote "Hydropathy" (1844); "Consumption; Its Prevention and Cure by the Water Treatment;" "Midwifery and the Diseases of Women by Water Treatment" (1852); "Pregnancy and Child Birth by Water Treatment;" "Tobacco."
He died at Oyster Bay, Long Island, October 6, 1855.