Correspondence

Scope and Contents note The Silas Weir Mitchell collection contains material related to the personal and professional activities of Philadelphia-area physician and author Silas Weir Mitchell, as well as members of his family. This collection consists of selected manuscripts, photographs, and published material that have been separated from a larger collection by Norman Kane (A.B.A.A., Emeritus), and acquired by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia.This collection is arranged into five series;...

Abstract Silas Weir Mitchell was born in Philadelphia in 1829. He earned his M.D. from Jefferson Medical College in 1850. During the American Civil War (1861-1865), Mitchell worked as a contract surgeon in Turner's Lane Hospital in Philadelphia, an army hospital for nervous diseases. was actively involved in numerous local and national medical societies. He was founder and first president of the American Neurological Society and first president of the Philadelphia Neurological Society. In later...

Scope and Contents

Letter, 1911 Mar. 26, naming John Shaw Billings as custodian of Benjamin Rush watch (later part of Abbe Cabinet of College of Physicians of Philadelphia), following Mitchell’s death. Note from College Secretary John H. Girvin indicating, since Billings’ death preceded Mitchell’s, Simon Flexner appointed next custodian.

Scope and Contents note The S. Weir Mitchell Papers, spanning 1788 to 1949, contain Mitchell's correspondence, travel journals, diaries, literary notebooks, and manuscripts of his speeches, poems, and unpublished autobiography. The bulk of the collection concerns Mitchell's family life and literary career, but also present is material pertaining to Mitchell as a physician, such as correspondence with his British and American colleagues and records of his studies of patients with nerve injuries. The collection...

Abstract

1) A case of uncomplicated hysteria in the male, 1904; 2) Two letters to Dr. Osler concerning his book on science and immortality, 1904; and 3) Address to the American Neurological Association by the President, S. Weir Mitchell, 1909.

Previously catalogued as 10a 195.