"The Yellow Wall-paper" The Rest Cure

Silas Weir Mitchel, inventor of the rest cure. Credits:Wellcome Library, London Influential American neurologist Silas Weir Mitchell developed the rest cure in the late 1800s for the treatment of hysteria, neurasthenia and other nervous illnesses. It became widely used in the US and UK, but was prescribed more often for women than men. It was frequently used to treat anorexia nervosa. The treatment kept some patients alive and others out of asylums, though some patients and doctors considered the cure worse than the disease.