This volume presents one of Mitchell's touchstone texts of neurasthenia cultural critique as medical diagnosis. Fat and Blood was a best seller in its time and went through multiple printings and numerous editions. It fused the cultural critique of modern society and the inversion of gender roles with the medical analysis of this strange new ailment. Today we are likely to read it angrily, as it serves to enforce the most pernicious stereotypes about women (and not so incidentally, about men) stereotypes that have proved resilient obstacles to women's advancement. But Fat and Blood supports another reading, a bit more contemporary and certainly more engaged. There are constant arguments that resound across more than the century since they were written.

S. Weir Mitchell's work on the etiology and treatment of neurasthenia, commonly called "brain drain," provided the intersection of medical diagnoses of a serious ailment with cultural critiques of modernity and the vigorous reassertion of traditional gender ideologies. It was for neurasthenia that Mitchell treated feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman and countless others, for whom the pace and pressures of modern society had proved too difficult to bear, and who were exhibiting symptoms ranging from severe depression and unbearable lassitude, to anxiety and panic disorders. First published in 1971, Wear and Tear became a best-seller, a popular general treatise on culture and mental and physical health and brought Mitchell significant public attention. More than a century later, Wear and Tear may be seen as cautionary tales, reminding contemporary readers of the persistence of traditional gender ideologies, and the ways in which pseudo-scientific arguments have undermined women's claims for an equal footing in the public and private spheres.