The Curative Power of Trust: Manhood and Medicine in the Fiction of S. Weir Mitchell.

Abstract

The medical field was contested terrain in the late nineteenth century as women doctors, patent medicine producers, home health care guides, and emerging specializations jockeyed for professional legitimacy and customers. The widespread consternation about the threat of neurasthenia, a common yet disputed diagnosis believed to be caused by the conditions of industrialization and urbanization, induced fear that any sign of distress might be the harbinger of medical crisis; confusion and distrust about medical authority caused many neurasthenics to suffer in silence. Using close readings of the autobiographical novels of neurologist S. Weir Mitchell, I argue that fictionalized accounts of his clinical experience showcased the doctor-patient relationship as a safe, trustworthy homosocial environment where men could express emotional vulnerability. These narratives reinforced the authority and credibility of physicians relative to so-called quacks and women practitioners, showing male doctors to be most capable of curative trust in clinical visits.