4 NEW YORK HERALD TRIBUNE BOOK REVIEW, MAY 28, 1950 periences of his friends to compo A Writer More Dynamic Than His Books vivid pictures of Civil War batt) fields. "Hugh Wynne," the story A Thoroughly First-role Study of Weir Mitchell, Neurologist-Novelist a Quaker who took part in t Revolution, though it is easily t own specialty, however, prevented most popular of Mitchell's wor generation of medical men poorly him later from fully recognizing is too much weighted down w trained by modern standards, whose minds were highly stimu- the value of Freud's discoveries in antiquarian detail to rank, lated by hints of what could be the adjacent field of psycho- Professor Earnest's opinion, as best book. That distinction achieved by experimental meth- pathology. awarded to the less known "Co ods. At the same time, they were Not until he was a well estab- stance Trescott," a memora not overburdened by the obliga- lished professional man of fifty tion to master an almost infinite did Mitchell commence being an portrait of a woman of the po bellum South who is dominated variety of established techniques. author in earnest with a historical Consequently, they thought crea- novel set in the early days of a possessive mania, tively, like inventors, and then Philadelphia. Of the score of fic- In this and several other nov confirmed their inspirations by tional works which he produced written when most Americ research. In his own field of neu- during the next thirty-five years fiction was designed for "ha rology. Mitchell became almost at the majority followed the histori- mock reading," Mitchell produ S. Weir Mitchell once an internationally acknowl- cal pattern, though he twice drew books of respectable intellect edged leader. His success in his on his own memories and the ex- quality, which in substance if S. WEIR MITCHELL, Novelist inta Physician. By Ernest Earnest. 279 pp. Phila- delphia: University of Pennsylvania of Parts Press. $3.50. 1950 S. WEIR MITCHELL NOVELIST AND Reviewed by PHYSICIAN. By Ernest Earnest. 279 GEORGE F. WHICHER pp. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. $3.50. S INCE there is little likelihood T HIS scholarly biography of a that another biographical study man who was "almost a of Dr. Weir Mitchell will be called genius" to his contemporaries for, the writer of this life may take reminds the present-day reader satisfaction in the thought that the that Nerves Dr. Mitchell's "Injuries Conse- to his work will not soon be super- and Their seded. In the present instance the quences" (published in 1864) was a standard text for the possibility of rivalry is still further lessened by the fact that Professor much toxicology immunology that owe French of World War I, and Earnest has done a thoroughly to his studies of rat- first-rate job. His book supplies tlesnake venom. Patron of the the expert and detached appraisal College of Physicians in Phila- and the effective arrangement delphia, Mitchell contributed a which were conspicuously lacking hundred papers to American in the heaps of raw material as- medical lore, and was well- sembled in Anna Robeson Burr's known among his contempo- "Weir Mitchell, His Life and Let- raries as noveltst and post. ters" (1929) These two blographies Mr. Earneat, a Professor of together probably contain all the information worth keeping about English at Temple University. the career of an incredibly rest- less and energetic physician and study has obviously of both intensive and his made an the man writer of fiction. Readers who era. Remarking that "the gen- want to get at the facts with the eration immediately following a least waste motion will do well to famous man's death tends to consult Mr. Earnest's volume. undervalue him," he No one can have the slightest the subject last backdrop presents his against the of doubt, after scanning the ac- century, along with such contemporaries as Oliver counts of his life, that Weir Mit- Wendell Holmes, William Dean chell as a personality was much Howells, and Edward Bok- more lively and picturesque than whose editorial skirmishes anything he ever wrote, His bi- Mr. Mitchell Earnest in detail. with are set down ographer describes him as "almost has drawn an en- a genius," and adds demurely: gaging portrait of a man who "His contemporaries believed that hated sham in both the world he was one, an opinion Mitchell of science and letters IRVING W. came to share." When he died at VOORHEES eighty-five, reading proof to the last, Mitchell was known for a standard medical treatise on "Gun- shot Wounds and Other Injuries of the Nerves," for the widely dis- cussed "rest cure" for nervous dis- eases, for fundamental discoveries about the nature of rattlesnake venom, for a historical novel, "Hugh Wynne," often ranked among the best of the century, and for an "Ode on a Lycian Tomb," which friends privately praised as marking the "high tide of Ameri- can verse." This last opinion has not been sustained. Dr. Harvey Cushing recorded that Mitchell in his later years "eagerly lapt up adulation," but conceded that he "had much to be vain about." All accounts agree in testifying to his dynamic presence and tireless cu- riosity. He could hardly have avoided being aware that no physician except Oliver Wendell Holmes had achieved distinction comparable to his in both medi- cine and letters. Though Mitchell has left half a dozen novels that are still worth