The Project Gutenberg EBook of Wear and Tear, by Silas Weir Mitchell

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Title: Wear and Tear
or, Hints for the Overworked

Author: Silas Weir Mitchell

Release Date: August 17, 2004 [EBook #13197]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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WEAR AND TEAR,

OR

HINTS FOR THE OVERWORKED.

BY
S. WEIR MITCHELL, M.D., LL.D. HARV.,

MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, PRESIDENT OF THE COLLEGE OF
PHYSICIANS OF PHILADELPHIA, ETC.

_FIFTH EDITION_,
THOROUGHLY REVISED.

PHILADELPHIA:
J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY.
LONDON: 10 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1871, by
J.B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.

PRINTED BY J.B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.

PREFACE.

The rate of change in this country in education, in dress, and in diet
and habits of daily life surprises even the most watchful American
observer. It is now but fifteen years since this little book was written
as a warning to a restless nation possessed of an energy tempted to its
largest uses by unsurpassed opportunities. There is still need to repeat
and reinforce my former remonstrance, but I am glad to add that since I
first wrote on these subjects they have not only grown into importance
as questions of public hygiene, but vast changes for the better have
come about in many of our ways of living, and everywhere common sense is
beginning to rule in matters of dress, diet, and education.

The American of the Eastern States and of the comfortable classes[1] is
becoming notably more ruddy and more stout. The alteration in women as
to these conditions is most striking, and, if I am not mistaken, in
England there is a lessening tendency towards that excess of adipose
matter which is still a surprise to the American visiting England for
the first time.

I should scarcely venture to assert so positively that Americans had
obviously taken on flesh within a generation if what I see had not been
observed by many others. It would, I think, be interesting to