| Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior | |
|---|---|
| Born | Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior September 25, 1886 Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, United States |
| Died | August 27, 1940 (aged 53)[1] Back Bay, Boston, Massachusetts, United States |
| Nationality | United States |
| Occupation | physician, scientist, inventor |
| Known for | co-inventor of the iron lung[2][3][4][5] |
| Parents |
Louis Agassiz Shaw (September 18, 1861 – July 2, 1891)[6] |
| Relatives |
uncle: Robert Gould Shaw (October 10, 1837 – July 18, 1863) |
Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior (September 25, 1886 – August 27, 1940) was an instructor of physiology at the School of Public Health of Harvard University, where he is credited in 1928 along with Philip Drinker for inventing the Drinker respirator, the first widely used iron lung.
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Shaw's parents were Louis Agassiz Shaw and Mary Elizabeth Saltonstall. Both parents came from wealthy and politically influential Boston Brahmin families with roots extending back to the Mayflower.
Shaw's father was born at 26 Mount Vernon Street in Beacon Hill in 1861, and the following year the family moved to Jamaica Plain.[7] He attended George Washington Copp Noble School in Boston, and graduated from Harvard University in 1884. He married Mary Elizabeth Saltonstall on June 30, 1884 in Newton, right after the graduation ceremony.[8] The couple moved to Chestnut Hill and had two children, Quincy Adams Shaw II (born May 21, 1885) and Louis Agassiz Shaw Junior (born on September 25, 1886).[9] Shaw's father died at home in Chestnut Hill from tuberculosis when Louis Junior was only four years old.[8]
Shaw had two uncles named Robert Gould Shaw. The elder uncle, Robert Gould Shaw, was a colonel in the Union Army during the American Civil War and commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, one of the first black Army units in the United States. He was killed in 1863 during the Second Battle of Fort Wagner, near Charleston, South Carolina. The younger uncle, Robert Gould Shaw II, was married to Nancy Witcher Langhorne (who later became Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor). Robert Gould Shaw II had a son named Louis Agassiz Shaw II (ca. 1910 – ca. 1986), a socialite who became infamous after he strangled his maid to death on April 7, 1964.[10]
Shaw's paternal grandparents were Quincy Adams Shaw (one of the richest men in Massachusetts through his investment in the Calumet and Hecla Mining Company) and Pauline Agassiz.[8] Shaw's great grandfather, for whom he was named, was Louis Agassiz, noted professor of zoology at Harvard University. Another of Shaw's great grandfathers was Leverett Saltonstall I, a member of the United States House of Representatives.
Shaw married Joanne Bird of East Walpole on June 14, 1910. The couple had two children, Joanne Bird Shaw (born March 31, 1911) and Pauline Agassiz Shaw (born on November 4, 1915, died on October 30, 1992).[11]
Shaw followed his father's educational footsteps, first attending the George Washington Copp Noble School (which had been renamed the Noble and Greenough School in 1892) and later attending Harvard University, graduating in 1909.[11] Shaw's younger cousins, future murderer Louis Agassiz Shaw II and future 55th Governor of Massachusetts and United States Senator, Leverett Saltonstall, also pursued the same academic path. Shaw continued to study for a couple of years after graduation, taking classes in botany, geology, and zoology. He contracted tuberculosis in the summer of 1911, and was consequently unable to work until the spring of 1913.[11]
Beginning in 1914, his research focused exclusively on physiology.[11] Shaw and his family moved into the brownstone building located at 6 Marlborough Street in the Back Bay in 1917, having acquired the property upon the death of his grandmother, Pauline Agassiz Shaw. The building had a long history, having served as a private day school (1885 – 1893), later as headquarters of the Massachusetts Woman's Suffrage Association (1904 – 1915), and then as headquarters of the Women's Municipal League of Boston (1915 – 1917).[12]
From late 1917 until early 1919, Shaw and his research team conducted investigations in his home laboratory on the physiological effects of poisonous gases and other problems related to the ongoing war in Europe. In the spring of 1919, he joined the faculty at the Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers in the department of industrial hygiene. The Harvard-MIT School for Health Officers was a joint venture between Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) that began in 1913. The joint venture ended in 1922, when the Harvard School of Public Health was formally established.[13]
Shaw and his family continued to live at 6 Marlborough Street at least until 1927. Shaw was a member of the Tennis and Racquet Club, located on Boylston Street not far from his house.[11] In that year, Shaw was arrested for the distillation of alcohol,[10] which was illegal in the United States during Prohibition, in effect from 1920 to 1933. Shortly after that event, the house was demolished and replaced by a five-story, 21-unit apartment house.[12]
Shaw was an instructor in physiology at the Harvard School of Public Health, where he is credited in 1928 along with Philip Drinker (1894 – 1972, associate professor of industrial hygiene) and his brother Cecil K. Drinker (1887 – 1956, later dean of the Harvard School of Public Health) for inventing the first widely used iron lung.[2][3][4][5] The machine was powered by an electric motor with air pumps from two vacuum cleaners. The air pumps changed the pressure inside a rectangular, airtight metal box, pulling air in and out of the lungs.[14]