Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Rest Cure: Repetition or Resolution of Victorian Women's Conflicts?

1985; Duke University Press; Volume: 6; Issue: 1/2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1772132

1527-5507

Ellen L. Bassuk,

Medical History and Innovations

During the late nineteenth century, Victorian doctors frequently administered S. Weir Mitchell's famous to women with severe nervous symptoms. These included patients diagnosed as hypochondriacs, hysterics, and most commonly, neurasthenics.1 Supposedly, many benefited but others, such as Charlotte Perkins Gilman and Virginia Woolf, became even sicker and condemned both Mitchell and his treatment.2 Certainly, the rest cure was less barbaric than leeching, cauterization and normal ovariotomy-procedures that were also used to treat women with nervous ailments (Bassuk unpublished; Currier 1886). But it too seemed sadistic, controlling, and intrusive.