RACP. Specialists. TogetherRACP. Specialists. Together

Toggle mobile menu
✖

Register for Basic Training


PREP

For basic trainees who started in 2024 or earlier to re-register each year.
›

New Curriculum

For basic trainees starting from 2025.
›
Open section menu ▼

About

Open section menu ▼

College Roll Bio

Shearman, Cyril Howard


Qualifications
MB Syd (1911) FRACP (1938) (Foundation)
Born
26/07/1889
Died
20/05/1960

Dr Cyril Shearman was one of the pioneers of pathology in Australia. He served in the First World War as major in the AAMC Reserve. During this time he developed an interest in serology and parasitology. After the War he was appointed as honorary serologist to Sydney Hospital and honorary pathologist to Lewisham Hospital.

He developed a modification of the Wassermann Reaction which was used for many years at Sydney Hospital. With the same basic technique he performed complement fixation tests for hydatid disease with an antigen prepared from diseased livers collected from the abattoirs. In addition to serology he had wide experience in histopathology which he practised at Lewisham Hospital and at his consultant practice. He had been in the BMA Building, 135 Macquarie Street since, I think, its opening, in partnership with Dr Eva Shipton.

I knew him for only the last few years of his life, when I was a junior partner in the practice, and my association with him was limited to daily professional contact. During this time he still spent every morning at Sydney Hospital and would walk across Macquarie Street for lunch at the BMA Building. This was a simple lunch, just a sandwich, which he ate with Dr Shipton at the big desk in the large consulting room. After lunch the histopathology sections were examined, with the three of us at a bench at the window of the laboratory.

This routine continued until the last few months of his life, when increasing illness forced him to retire. He died in the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital at which he had spent his residency.

Author

CK LINDSELL

References

Last Updated

May 30, 2018, 17:35 PM
Donate to RACP Foundation and further tomorrow's medicine today.
About usContact usMyRACPMyCPDRACP BenefitsCareers at RACP
We acknowledge and pay respect to the Traditional Custodians and Elders — past, present and emerging — of the lands and waters on which RACP members and staff live, learn and work. RACP acknowledges Māori as tangata whenua and Te Tiriti o Waitangi partners in Aotearoa New Zealand.

Find out more about our commitment to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander and Māori health equity.

© 2025 - Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP)  |  ABN 90 270 343 237 and ACN 000 039 047.

Close overlay