Article ID: CBB000800011

Personalizing Illness and Modernity: S. Weir Mitchell, Literary Women, and Neurasthenia, 1870-1914 (2005)

unapi

This article examines how the affliction of neurasthenia, commonly diagnosed in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, acted as a catalyst for intellectual and lifestyle changes during a time of modernization. At the center of the study are three individuals: neurologist S. Weir Mitchell (1829--1914) and two of his patients, critic and historian Amelia Gere Mason (1831--1923) and writer and homemaker Sarah Butler Wister (1835--1908). Using archived correspondence between Mitchell and his patients, this article seeks to reveal how each woman tailored her treatment to fit her personal sensibilities; to reassess Mitchell's notorious reputation as a misogynist (gained largely from his 1887 treatment of Charlotte Perkins Gilman); and to develop a more nuanced understanding of the doctor-patient relationship in neurasthenia cases.

...More
Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000800011/

Similar Citations

Book Cervetti, Nancy; (2012)
S. Weir Mitchell, 1829--1914: Philadelphia's Literary Physician (/isis/citation/CBB001550870/)

Book Appignanesi, Lisa; (2007)
Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present (/isis/citation/CBB001022250/)

Article Lima, Elizabeth Maria Freire de Araújo; (2009)
Machado de Assis e a psiquiatria: um capítulo das relações entre arte e clínica no Brasil (/isis/citation/CBB000932965/)

Book Schuster, David G.; (2011)
Neurasthenic Nation America's Search for Health, Happiness, and Comfort, 1869--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB001212361/)

Article Zorzanelli, Rafaela Teixeira; (2010)
Psicastenia (/isis/citation/CBB001420498/)

Book Preston, Margaret H.; hÓgartaigh, Margaret Ó; (2012)
Gender and Medicine in Ireland, 1700--1950 (/isis/citation/CBB001551161/)

Book Stiles, Anne; (2007)
Neurology and Literature, 1860--1920 (/isis/citation/CBB000774274/)

Chapter Schickore, Jutta; (2012)
Scientists' Methods Accounts: S. Weir Mitchell's Research on the Venom of Poisonous Snakes (/isis/citation/CBB001500248/)

Book Cervetti, Nancy; (2012)
S. Weir Mitchell, 1829--1914: Philadelphia's Literary Physician (/isis/citation/CBB001252876/)

Article O'Sullivan, Lisa; (2012)
The Time and Place of Nostalgia: Re-situating a French Disease (/isis/citation/CBB001252190/)

Article Zorzanelli, Rafaela Teixeira; (2010)
Neurastenia (/isis/citation/CBB001420499/)

Authors & Contributors
Zorzanelli, Rafaela Teixeira
Cervetti, Nancy
Polat, Bican
hÓgartaigh, Margaret Ó
Preston, Margaret H.
Han, Alysia Young
Concepts
Mental disorders and diseases
Clinical psychology
Psychiatry
Medicine and gender
Hysteria
Nervous system
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
20th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
21st century
18th century
Places
United States
France
Brazil
Netherlands
Germany
Europe
Institutions
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
Comments

Be the first to comment!

{{ comment.created_by.username }} on {{ comment.created_on | date:'medium' }}

Log in or register to comment