Fat and blood : an essay on the treatment of certain forms of neurasthenia and hysteria / by S. Weir Mitchell.

  • Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir), 1829-1914.
Date:
1898
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Fat and blood : an essay on the treatment of certain forms of neurasthenia and hysteria / by S. Weir Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Playfair’s essay1 says all that I would care to add: “The claims of Dr. Weir Mitchell to ori^i- nality in the introduction of this system of treat- ment, which I have recently heard contested in more than one quarter, it is not my province to defend. I feel bound, however, to say that, having carefully studied what has been written on the subject, I can nowhere find anything in the least approaching to the regular, systematic, and thorough attack on the disease here dis- cussed. “ Certain parts of the treatment have been separately advised, and more or less successfully practised, as, for example, massage and electri- city, without isolation ; or isolation and judicious moral management alone. It is, in fact, the old story with regard to all new things : there is no discovery, from the steam-engine down to chloro- form, which cannot be shown to have been par- tially foreseen, and yet the claims of Watt and Simpson to originality remain practically un- contested. And so, if I may be permitted to 1 The Systematic Treatment of Nerve Prostration and Hys- teria. London, 1883.