Wear and tear, or, Hints for the overworked / by S. Weir Mitchell.

  • Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir), 1829-1914.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Wear and tear, or, Hints for the overworked / by S. Weir Mitchell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the National Library of Medicine (U.S.), through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the National Library of Medicine (U.S.)

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    talking chiefly of the crowded portions of our country—of our Atlantic States—of our great towns, and especially of their upper classes, and am dealing with those higher questions of mental hygiene of which in general we hear but too little. If the strictures I have to make applied throughout the land—to Oregon as to New England, to the farmer as to the business man, to the women of the artisan class as to those socially above them— then indeed I should cry, God help us and those that are to come after us ! Owing to causes which are obvious enough, the physical worker is being better and better paid and less and less hardly tasked, while just the reverse obtains in increasing ratios for those who live by the lower form of brain-work; so that the bribe to use the hand is growing daily, and pure mechanical labor, as op- posed to that of the clerk, is being leveled up- ward with a fortunate celerity. Before attempting to indicate certain ways in which we as a people are overtaxing and mis- using the organs of thought, I should be glad to have the privilege of explaining the terms which it is necessary to use, and of pointing out some of