Physician Silas Weir Mitchell
is perhaps best remembered for his “Rest Cure” for nervous women, depicted by his onetime patient Charlotte Perkins Gilman in “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892).
Who developed the rest cure?
This approach was typified by
Silas Weir Mitchell’s
“rest cure,”
2
which was so popular as to be described as “the greatest advance of which practical medicine can boast in the last quarter of the century.”
3
Despite such accolades, the popularity of the rest cure was short lived.
Who is the doctor in the Yellow Wallpaper?
Today,
Silas Weir Mitchell
(1829–1914) is best known as the purveyor of the Rest Cure, made infamous by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wallpaper.” But while he was alive, he was renowned as a pioneering doctor of nervous diseases and a successful author.
What was the name of the doctor who famously prescribed the rest cure to Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
After three months of marriage, Charlotte was pregnant. And after the baby was born she fell into a psychotic depression—the most horrible episode of illness she had ever encountered. She came under the care of a
doctor Silas Weir Mitchell
, the world’s leading expert on hysteria. He offered two cures.
What was the West cure?
The nature or “West cure” was developed in
the nineteenth century to treat men with anxiety
. Women were sent to bed. This is A Cure for Fear, a monthly column by Laura Turner on working, creating, and living with anxiety.
Was the rest cure successful?
The rest cure was
really only suitable for educated, skilled and wealthy patients
who had the time and help to undergo the treatment in their own homes or in a fashionable sanatorium. It may have kept some patients alive and others out of asylums, but some patients and doctors found the cure worse than the disease.
Why does the woman in the yellow wallpaper need to rest?
The narrator is brought by her physician husband to a summer retreat in the countryside to recover from her “
temporary nervous depression
– a slight hysterical tendency”. There she is to rest, take tonics, air and exercise – and absolutely forbidden to engage in intellectual work until well again.
Does John really love his wife in the Yellow Wallpaper?
Unlike his imaginative wife, John is extremely practical, preferring facts and figures to “fancy,” at which he “scoffs openly.”
He seems to love his wife
, but he does not understand the negative effect his treatment has on her. Read an in-depth analysis of John.
How would you interpret the ending of the story The Yellow Wallpaper?
At the end of the story,
the narrator believes that the woman has come out of the wallpaper
. This indicates that the narrator has finally merged fully into her psychosis, and become one with the house and domesticated discontent.
What is the symbolism of the yellow wallpaper?
Clearly, the wallpaper represents
the structure of family, medicine, and tradition in which the narrator finds herself trapped
. Wallpaper is domestic and humble, and Gilman skillfully uses this nightmarish, hideous paper as a symbol of the domestic life that traps so many women.
What is the rest cure and how is depicted in the yellow wallpaper?
“The Yellow Wallpaper” gives
an account of a woman driven to madness as a result of the
Victorian “rest-cure,” a once frequently prescribed period of inactivity thought to cure hysteria and nervous conditions in women. As Gary Scharnhorst points out, this treatment originated with Dr.
Who influenced Charlotte Perkins Gilman?
A movement largely led by
middle-class white women
, they concerned themselves with suffrage, labor and economic rights, and of course women’s rights. A concept known as “material feminism” emerged which influenced Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s ideas.
How did Dr S Weir Mitchell treat his patients?
The treatment consisted primarily in isolation,
confinement to bed, dieting, electrotherapy and massage
; and was popularly known as ‘Dr Diet and Dr Quiet’. Mitchell advocated a high-fat diet to his patients. He believed that a diet rich in fat would “fatten and redden” his patients, leading to a cure.
How did Dr S Weir Mitchell treat patients with depression?
Weir Mitchell, a wealthy and influential Philadelphia neurologist, created
the rest cure
, a regimen of forced bed rest, restricted diet, and a combination of massage and electrical muscle stimulation in place of exercise.
What is the meaning of neurasthenia?
:
a condition that is characterized especially by physical and mental exhaustion
usually with accompanying symptoms (such as headache and irritability), is of unknown cause but is often associated with depression or emotional stress, and is sometimes considered similar to or identical with chronic fatigue syndrome.
