Answer: Silas Weir Mitchell

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914) was a Philadelphia physician and author.  He attended Jefferson Medical College, and before that, the University of Pennsylvania before that.  During the Civil War, he worked at Turners Lane Hospital. This work led him to become a neurology specialist, and he wrote several works on nerves and the nervous system.

Mitchell's career took off after the Civil War, however, as he delved further into the field of neurology.  He was the first to describe erythromelalgia, which was then called "Mitchell's Disease."  He also became of the first doctors to study the nervous condition called "hysteria" in women, which resulted in his "rest cure." Sometimes called "Mitchell's Rest Cure" or some variation thereof, he prescribed it to treat a variety of nervous disorders usually in women, but also in men. This technique involved bed rest, isolation, dieting, and massage. The rest cure was widely recognized and prescribed but also criticized particular in Charlotte Perkins Gilman's work, The Yellow Wallpaper (1892).

Mitchell married twice during his life; first in 1858 to Mary M. Elwyn with whom he had two sons.  Mary died in 1862.  In 1875, Mitchell married again, this time to Mary Cadwalader, and the couple had one daughter. He lived his whole life in Philadelphia and died at his home in 1914. He was buried in Woodlands Cemetery.

HSP has several of Silas Weir Mitchell's books in the library, from his medial works to his fiction.  Additionally, the manuscript collections include Silas Weir Mitchell's autobiography (Am. 10477) and Hugh Wynne: Free Quaker (extra illustrated biography) by Silas Weir Mitchell (Ar .99 M68).