Rest cure – XIX-wieczna terapia nudą Silasa Weira Mitchella w opowiadaniu „Żółta tapeta” Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Artykuł zawiera kulturową analizę wpływu przymusowego odpoczynku od aktywności intelektualnej i domowej nałożonego na XIX-wieczne pacjentki diagnozowane jako cierpiące na neurastenię. Historia terapii Weira Mitchella Rest Cure, stworzona dla kobiet cierpiących z powodu nerwów, stanowi kontekst dla interpretacji sztandarowego opowiadania C.P. Gilman Żółta tapeta. Teoria choroby zaproponowana przez słynnego lekarza była wyraźnie skorelowana z płcią. Mimo że sam opis terapii (odpoczynek, dieta, masaże) brzmi trywialnie, to Mitchell stał się czarnym charakterem w opowiadaniu amerykańskiej prozaiczki. Tekst Gilman w metaforyczny sposób pokazuje, jak rygorystycznie zastosowana terapia nudą doprowadza narratorkę do szaleństwa. Terapia spoczynkowa pokazuje represyjne oblicze medycyny, tym samym nuda, stanowiąca główne założenie leczenia, jest nudą wręcz zabójczą. Nie ma tu miejsca na odpoczynek, postrzegany pozytywnie, pozostaje nuda, która w tym przypadku ma znaczenie wyłącznie pejoratywne.

Sophia Peabody Hawthorne

In 1809, Sophia Amelia Peabody was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to an old and distinguished New England family, the third of seven children. The family was sustained largely by its women, who ran and taught in a variety of schools—providing an intellectually stimulating, if not economically thriving, environment. Her home studies spanned an unusual range for a woman of her time. Under the particular tutelage of eldest sister Elizabeth—who would become an education reformer, transcendentalist, and publisher—she read widely across such fields as history, theology, literature, art, science, and philosophy, acquiring a lifelong habit of self-education. A talent not only for writing but also for visual art emerged, and after the Peabodys moved to Boston, Sophia began informal apprenticeships with such prominent painters as Washington Allston and Thomas Doughty. The family’s circle also expanded to include such luminaries as Margaret Fuller and Ralph Waldo Emerson. In 1833, severe headaches that had long plagued Sophia prompted the Peabodys to send her, with older sister Mary (later an author herself), for an extended rest cure in Cuba. While there, she produced a letter-journal of over eight hundred pages and dispatched it in installments to New England, captivating family and friends with closely observed descriptions of unfamiliar landscapes and social scenes—which, however, tended to avoid Cuban slavery. Not long after returning to Salem, Sophia met the author Nathaniel Hawthorne, who admired her as the “Queen of Journalizers,” and they married in 1842. At the Old Manse, the young couple became part of Concord life (the Emersons, Thoreaus, and Alcotts lived nearby) and had the first of three children; Nathaniel wrote short stories, while Sophia largely set aside her professional aspirations as an artist, embracing the roles of wife and mother with a passion that would define her well into the 20th century. Throughout life, however—through childbearing, financial strain, European travel, and widowhood—Sophia maintained sketchbooks and wrote profusely in letters, journals, and travel notebooks. Only one authored text saw publication before her death in 1871: the 1869 Notes in England and Italy. Until quite recently, Sophia’s main claim to recognition had been her marriage to the celebrated author and her editorial work on his notebooks for posthumous publication. In the 1990s, interest in her as both writer and artist began to accelerate, and the early 21st century has seen a vigorous upturn: two major biographies, the first essay collection on the Peabody sisters, a special journal issue, and numerous essays have helped recover a Sophia Peabody Hawthorne whose complexity extends well beyond her conventional persona. As these studies demonstrate, she is richly relevant to such vibrant areas of inquiry as literary and artistic marketplaces, epistolary cultures, gender politics, transnationalism, and travel writing.

Silas Weir Mitchell on Epilepsy Therapy in the Late 19thto Early 20thCenturies

Silas Weir Mitchell (1829-1914), one of the fathers of American neurology, is well known for many contributions to neurology. However, his efforts in epilepsy are overshadowed by his other accomplishments. Mitchell introduced a new bromide preparation, lithium bromide, as a viable therapy. His most widely accepted contribution to the field was the introduction of inhaled amyl nitrite for early termination of seizures accompanied by an appropriate aura. Despite the prevalent views on lifestyle modification as a treatment for epilepsy during this time period, as well as Mitchell's own development of the “rest cure” for certain disease states, he was not a proponent of these types of interventions for epilepsy, nor did he support interventions focused on other organ systems, such as abdominal or gynecologic surgery. Mitchell had distinct opinions on the treatment of epilepsy, and helped to advance its therapeutics during his career.

Bodies in the Archive

Off and on for fifteen years I traveled the country to research the life and work of the nineteenth-century physician S. Weir Mitchell. Mitchell is best known as the creator of the rest cure to treat hysteria and neurasthenia, but his wide-ranging interests led him to explore many other areas of medicine and literature. His groundbreaking work with rattlesnake venom earned him an international reputation, and his work with gunshot wounds, burning pain, and phantom limbs during the U.S. Civil War won him the title of the “Father of American Neurology.” Mitchell also possessed an impressive facility with language, and . . .

“How well one has to be, to be ill!”: Work, Pain, and the Discourse of Neurasthenia in The Diary of Alice James

<p>Neurasthenia, though no longer diagnosed today, was an illness that was commonly diagnosed in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. It was an umbrella category that encompassed all manner of somatic and psychosomatic ailments. In order to make this disease more palatable to the American public, Dr. George Miller Beard constructed an economic metaphor, in which people had certain amounts of &ldquo;nerve-force&rdquo; that could be saved or spent and, when overspent, could result in &ldquo;nervous bankruptcy.&rdquo; My essay analyzes <em>The Diary of Alice James </em>from a disability studies perspective in order to how Alice James uses this economic terminology rhetorically to reclaim her subjectivity, to characterize disability as central to identity, to disrupt the narrative of disability as global incapacity, and to configure pain (rather than illness itself) as work.</p><p>Keywords:&nbsp;neurasthenia, "rest cure," invalid, discourse, nervous, nerve-force, and "nervous bankruptcy"</p>

Performing the Rest Cure: Mrs Patrick Campbell's Ophelia, 1897

In 1897 audiences welcomed Johnston Forbes-Robertson's new interpretation of Hamlet to the London stage, and his sane, intelligent Prince was received as an exciting departure from tradition. Mrs Patrick Campbell's own experiments with the role of Ophelia in this production were not so warmly greeted, critics describing her playing as ‘curiously weak’ and ‘unconvincing and unimpressive’. Campbell had rejected the conventional model of the character as emblematic of the prettiness and pathos exemplified by Ellen Terry, and instead offered a vacant, depressive, ‘beaten’ Ophelia. In this article, Fiona Gregory examines the influences behind this choice, including the actress's own experience of mental illness and the notorious ‘rest cure’. The reception of the performance is read in terms of contemporary attitudes to Ophelia and mental illness, as well as of responses to Campbell and her celebrity identity in the visual arts. Ultimately, Campbell's performance of Ophelia can be read as a ‘witness account’ of neurasthenia and the ‘rest cure’, to stand alongside texts such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's story ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’. Fiona Gregory lectures in the Centre for Theatre and Performance at Monash University, and has published work on the career of actress Judith Anderson, Australian cultural history, and Victorian and Edwardian writers. She is currently undertaking a wide-ranging study of actresses and mental illness from the nineteenth century to the present day, drawing on historical examples and literary and cultural representations to consider the intersections of ‘hysteria’ and the ‘histrionic’.