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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    give it rest. She cannot read; the self-consti- tuted nurse reads to her. At last light hurts her eyes; the mother or sister remains shut up with her all day in a darkened room. A draught of air is supposed to do harm, and the doors and windows are closed, and the ingenuity of kind- ness is taxed to imagine new sources of like trouble, until at last, as I have seen more than once, the window-cracks are stuffed with cotton, the chimney is stopped, and even the keyhole guarded. It is easy to see where this all leads to: the nurse falls ill, and a new victim is found. I have seen an hysterical, ansemic girl kill in this way three generations of nurses. If you tell the patient she is basely selfish, she is prob- ably amazed, and wonders at your cruelty. To cure such a case you must morally alter as well as physically amend, and nothing less will an- swer. The first step needful is to break up the companionship, and to substitute the firm kind- ness of a well-trained hired nurse.1 Another form of evil to he encountered in these cases is less easy to deal with. Such an '“Nurse and Patient.” S. Weir Mitchell. Lippincott’s Magazine, Dec. 1872.