John Cargyll Shaw

John Cargyll Shaw

John Cargyll Shaw (September 25, 1845 in St. Ann's Bay – January 23, 1900 in Brooklyn) was an American psychiatrist and neurologist.

Son of John Shaw and Christine née Drew. Received his first education from his mother, later attended a boarding school at Walton, Jamaica. At the age of seventeen he came to New York. He was employed in the drug house on Pine Street. Graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1874.

During his career, he held positions of neurologist to the Brooklyn Eye and Ear Hospital and consulting neurologist to St. Catherine's, St. John's, Brooklyn, Kings County, Long Island College and Hudson River State Hospital. He was president of the New York Neurological Society (twice).

He was among the first who advocated and applied non-restraint in the insane hospitals of the United States.

Selected writings

• Essentials of Nervous Diseases and Insanity: Their Symptoms and Treatment (1904)
• The physiological action of hyoscyamine. Journal of nervous and mental disease, vol. ix. Nos. 1 and 2, 1882.
• The Practicability and Value of Non-restraint in Treating the Insane: A Paper Read at Cleveland, Ohio, July 1, 1880, Before the Conference of Charities. Tolman & White, Printers, 1880
• Apoplectiform, Epileptiform, and Hemiparetic Attacks in Locomotor Ataxia (1888)

Bibliography

• Onuf B. A biographical sketch of the late Dr. John C. Shaw. American Journal of Insanity 57, 3 pp. 564–575 (January 1901)
• A cyclopedia of American medical biography, comprising the lives of eminent deceased physicians and surgeons from 1610 to 1910 (1912) pp. 364–365 link