Silas Weir Mitchell (physician)
Silas Weir Mitchell | |
---|---|
Jefferson Medical College | |
Known for | neurology research |
Spouse | Mary Cadwalader |
Relatives | Silas Weir Mitchell (descendant) |
Silas Weir Mitchell (February 15, 1829 – January 4, 1914) was an American physician, scientist, novelist, and poet. He is considered the father of medical
Early life
Silas Weir Mitchell was born on February 15, 1829, in
He studied at Philadelphia's renowned University of Pennsylvania and later earned the degree of MD at the city's Jefferson Medical College in 1850.
Career
During the
His medical texts include Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences (1872) and Fat and Blood (1877).
In 1866, he published a short story in the
Prominent patients
Although Silas Weir Mitchell was considered the most prominent doctor of the time, his female patients often suffered under his care. There was even a death due to his treatment that was not revealed to the public.[citation needed]
He was
His treatment was also used on
Influence on Freud
Sigmund Freud reviewed Mitchell's book on The Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria in 1887;[9] and used electrotherapy in his work into the 1890s.[10]
Freud also adopted Mitchell's use of physical relaxation as an adjunct to therapy, which arguably led to the institutionalization of the psychoanalytic couch.[11]
Honors and recognition
Mitchell's eminence in science and letters was recognized by honorary degrees conferred upon him by several universities at home and abroad and by membership, honorary or active, in many American and foreign learned societies. In 1887 he was president of the Association of American Physicians and in 1908–09 president of the American Neurological Association.
He was a trustee of the
The American Academy of Neurology award for young researchers, the S. Weir Mitchell Award, is named for him.[14]
Crotalus mitchellii, the speckled rattlesnake, was named after Mitchell.[15]
Personal life
Mitchell was twice married. His first marriage was to Mary Middleton Elwyn (1838–1862), a daughter of Dr. Alfred L. Elwyn of Philadelphia.[16] Before her death, they were the parents of two children:
- John Kearsley Mitchell (1859–1917),[17] a neurologist who married Anne Keppele Williams in 1890.[16]
- Langdon Elwyn Mitchell (1862–1935),[18] a playwright who married actress Marion Lea in 1891.[19]
On June 23, 1875, Mitchell was married to Mary
- Marie Gouverneur Cadwalader Mitchell (1876–1898), who died unmarried.[22]
Mitchell died on January 4, 1914, in Philadelphia and is interred at
Cultural Club Founder
Mitchell and 8 other members of the University Club at Penn founded
Art patron
He was a friend and patron of the artist Thomas Eakins, and owned the painting Whistling for Plover.[24] The Philadelphia Chippendale chairs seen in several Eakins paintings – such as William Rush Carving his Allegorical Figure of Schuylkill River (1877) and the bas-relief Knitting (1883) – were borrowed from Mitchell. Following Eakins's 1886 forced resignation from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Mitchell may have recommended the artist's trip to the Badlands of South Dakota.
The artist John Singer Sargent painted two portraits of Mitchell: one is in the collection of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia; the other, commissioned by the Mutual Assurance Company of Philadelphia in 1902, was recently sold (see External Links, below).
The sculptor Augustus Saint-Gaudens modeled an 1884 bronze portrait plaque of Mitchell.[25] Mitchell commissioned Saint-Gaudens to create a monument to his deceased daughter Maria: The Angel of Purity, a white marble version of the sculptor's Amor Caritas. Originally installed in Saint Stephen's Church, Philadelphia, it is now at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
-
Princeton University
Seventy Years Ago (1877)
by Thomas Eakins.
Ghost story
Some time during the late 1800s, a ghost story was published about Dr. Mitchell that he was never able to lay to rest. The story tells how a very young girl in rags and threadbare shawl came to his door in bad weather and begged him to come take care of her sick mother. The girl guided Mitchell to the sick woman, who turned out to be a former house servant of his who was suffering from pneumonia. Mitchell helped the woman, then congratulated her on having such a fine daughter, but the woman told him her daughter died a month earlier. In a cupboard, Mitchell found the shawl the girl had been wearing; it had not been worn out that night.
A 2011 study determined that the ghost story was likely originally told by Mitchell himself as entertainment at a medical meeting, then took on a life of its own. In his 1910 book "Characteristics," Mitchell wrote about a man who told a story "about a little dead child who rang up a doctor one night, and took him to see her dying mother;" the man was then constantly bothered by believers and disbelievers, and unable to stop the story. In context, it seems that Mitchell was referring to himself.[26]
"The Yellow Wallpaper"
Charlotte Perkins Gilman would claim her short story "The Yellow Wallpaper" was directed at Weir Mitchell that he might reconsider the rest cure or change his treatments.[27] Although she has claimed to have sent a copy of the story, Weir Mitchell never acknowledged his connection to the infamous story or that he ever received a copy. Perkins Gilman also claimed that Weir Mitchell altered his Rest Cure treatment after reading "The Yellow Wallpaper," but there is no evidence that Weir Mitchell ever changed or altered the Rest Cure.
Terms
- Weir Mitchell skin – a red, glossy, perspiring skin seen in cases of incomplete irritative lesion of a nerve
- Weir Mitchell treatment – a method of treating neurasthenia, hysteria, etc., by absolute bed rest (aka a rest cure), frequent and abundant feeding, and the systematic use of massage and electricity
- Mitchell's disease – erythromelalgia
- Dorland's Medical Dictionary(1938)
Selected publications
- Rest in the Treatment of Nervous Disease (1875)
- Fat and Blood: And How to Make Them (1877)
- Fat and Blood: An Essay on the Treatment of Certain Forms of Neurasthenia and Hysteria (1884)
- Mitchell, S. Weir and Edward T. Reichert. 1886. Researches upon the Venoms of Poisonous Serpents. Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Number 647. The Smithsonian Institution. Washington, District of Columbia. 179 pp.
- "Characteristics" by S. Weir Mitchell, 1910 The Century Co., New York, NY, USA.
- "Circumstance" by S. Weir Mitchell, MD. LL.D. Harvard and Edinburgh. Published 1902 by The Century Co.
- The Autobiography of a Quack and other stories by S. Weir Mitchell, M.D. printed 1903
References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7867-2480-2.
- ISBN 978-0-520-08276-2
- ISBN 978-1-84668-425-8
- ISBN 978-0195156683
- S2CID 35696871.
- ^ Herr, Mickey. "On The Hunt For Brains, Discovering The Wistar Institute". hiddencityphila.org. Hidden City Philadelphia. Retrieved December 31, 2023.
- ^ Mitchell, Silas Weir (July 1866). "The Case of George Dedlow". Atlantic Monthly. Retrieved January 21, 2014.
- ISBN 9780701165079.
- ^ Jones, Ernest (1964). The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud. p. 210.
- ISBN 978-0-393-32861-5.
- ^ Ellenberger, p. 518.
- ^ Carnegie Institution of Washington. Year Book No. 47, July 1, 1947 – June 30, 1948 (PDF). Washington, DC. 1948. p. vi.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ "Guggenheim Honor Cup". Penn History, University of Pennsylvania.
- ^ American Academy of Neurology: S. Weir Mitchell award
- ISBN 978-1-4214-0135-5.
- ^ a b Andrews, Charles McLean (1907). The Ancestors and Descendants of Ezekiel Williams of Wethersfield 1608-1907. Case, Lockwood & Brainard Company Print] priv. print. p. 48. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ "Dr. John K. Mitchell". The New York Times. April 11, 1917. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ ORK 'l'zams, Special to Tx Nw (October 22, 1935). "L. E. MITCHELL, 75, PLAYWRIGHT, DIES; He Dramatized 'Vanity Fair' Under the Name of 'Becky Sharp' for Mrs, Fiske". The New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ "MRS. L. E. MITCHELL, FORMER ACTRESS, 83; Widow of Playwright, Poet Is Dead--Played With Langtry". The New York Times. June 9, 1944. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ a b Times, Special to The New York (January 16, 1914). "Mrs. S. Weir Mitchell". The New York Times. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ "Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) | Department of Neurology | Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania". www.med.upenn.edu. University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-271-07387-3. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ^ "DR. S. WEIR MITCHELL DEAD.; Neurologist and Author Had Been III With La Grippe". The New York Times. January 4, 1914. Retrieved June 15, 2023.
- ISBN 978-0-8122-4198-3.
- ^ Silas Weir Mitchell by Saint-Gaudens from Smithsonian Institution.
- ^ Dr. S. Weir Mitchell's Strange Encounter by Garth Haslam, from the Anomalies website.
- ^ Wayne, Teddy; Vincent, Caitlin (eds.). "The Yellow Wallpaper Study Guide". Grade Saver. Retrieved November 16, 2015.
Sources
public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Mitchell, Silas Weir". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 618.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in theFurther reading
- Anna Robeson Brown Burr, Weir Mitchell: His Life and Letters (Duffield & Company 1929).
- Nancy Cervetti, S. Weir Mitchell, 1829–1914: Philadelphia's Literary Physician. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2012. ISBN 0271054042
- Bookman, vol. 39 (1914). p. 132
- A. Proust and G. Ballet, The Treatment of Neurasthenia. 1902.
- Tucker, Beverly R., S. Weir Mitchell. Gorham Press, Boston, 1914.
- Talcott Williams, "Dr. S. Weir Mitchell" in the Century Magazine, vol. 57 (1898).
- Talcott Williams, in several articles in the Book News Monthly, vol. 26 (1907).
- A Catalogue of the Scientific and Literary Work of S. Weir Mitchell. Philadelphia, 1894.
External links
- Finding aid to the S. Weir Mitchell collection at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries
- Silas Weir Mitchell. Biography at WhoNamedIt
- Silas Weir Mitchell papers from the Historic Psychiatry Collection, Menninger Archives, Kansas Historical Society
- Works by Silas Weir Mitchell at Project Gutenberg
- Works by or about Silas Weir Mitchell at Internet Archive
- Works by Silas Weir Mitchell in the Ball State University Digital Media Repository
- Portrait of Silas Weir Mitchell by John Singer Sargent Archived July 5, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- S. Weir Mitchell Award of the American Academy of Neurology
- Silas Weir Mitchell at Find a Grave
- Silas Weir Mitchell (physician) — Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences
- Works by Silas Weir Mitchell at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)