His medical texts include
Injuries of Nerves and Their Consequences (1872) and
Fat and Blood (1877).
Mitchell's disease (
erythromelalgia) is named after him. He also coined the term
phantom limb during his study of an amputee. Mitchell discovered and treated
causalgia (today known as
CRPS/RSD), a condition most often encountered by hand surgeons. Mitchell is considered the father of medical neurology and a pioneer of "evidence-based" or "scientific" medicine. He was a founding member of the
American Anthropometric Society whose purpose was to collect the brains of eminent scientists to further brain science. He was also a psychiatrist, toxicologist, author, poet, and celebrity in Europe as well as America. His contemporaries considered him a
genius no less than
Benjamin Franklin.