A closer look
In the Victorian era, doctors usually prescribed women bed rest and laudanum, but Isabella Bird’s physician essentially told her to go away. Plagued by vague, chronic illnesses that magically vanished the second she left England, Bird adopted extreme travel as therapy. She rode yaks through Tibet and trudged through Rocky Mountain snowdrifts, discovering that facing imminent death by grizzly bear was actually much better for her mental health than sitting in a stuffy London drawing room.
