S. Weir Mitchell
Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article.
Join Britannica's Publishing Partner Program and our community of experts to gain a global audience for your work!S. Weir Mitchell, in full Silas Weir Mitchell, (born Feb. 15, 1829, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—died Jan. 4, 1914, Philadelphia), American physician and author who excelled in novels of psychology and historical romance.
After study at the University of Pennsylvania and Jefferson Medical College (M.D., 1850), Mitchell spent a year in Paris specializing in neurology. As an army surgeon during the American Civil War, he became well known for his “rest cure.” His war experiences were the basis for “The Case of George Dedlow” (1866), a story about a quadruple amputee notable for its psychological insights and realistic war scenes. He wrote some 170 medical monographs on topics ranging from snake venom to neurasthenia and published short stories, poems, and children’s stories anonymously. Of later novels perhaps his most notable are: Roland Blake (1886), Hugh Wynne (1898), The Adventures of François (1898), Circumstance (1901), Constance Trescott (1905), and The Red City (1908).
Learn More in these related Britannica articles:
-
physiology: Historical backgroundS. Weir Mitchell, who studied under Claude Bernard, and Henry P. Bowditch, who worked with Carl Ludwig, joined Martin to organize the American Physiological Society in 1887, and in 1898 the society sponsored publication of theAmerican Journal of Physiology . In 1868 Eduard Pflüger, professor… -
NovelNovel, an invented prose narrative of considerable length and a certain complexity that deals imaginatively with human experience, usually through a connected sequence of events involving a group of persons in a specific setting. Within its broad framework, the genre of the novel has encompassed an… -
Short storyShort story, brief fictional prose narrative that is shorter than a novel and that usually deals with only a few characters. The short story is usually concerned with a single effect conveyed in only one or a few significant episodes or scenes. The form encourages economy of setting, concise…
