The medical profession followed the cues of their rich clients changing fashion tastes. When thin and frail was fashionable, the medical profession supported the slender frame as the ideal and healthy form for women. However, with the popular notion of beauty changing, physicians now recommended that indeed plumpness, not thinness, was a sign of health. Going a step further to make their point they went so far as to recommend that the heavier women became the healthier they were. Two influential neurologists of the era were George Beard and S. Weir Mitchell, both of whom were proponents of plumpness.
Thin people lack a sufficient number of such cells and as a result are querulous and discontented.
Mitchell's rest and healing treatments for fashionable women of the day included large consumption of food. Neurologists also believed and taught in their books that thin people were not happy people. Women were now comparing the sizes of their calves, waist and bust. Thirty-five inch thighs were the standard as set by the famous actress Eugenie Doche. The Civil War, as with all wars, changed society and disrupted the usual roles of men and women in culture.