It seems appropriate that The Waste Land, a text which ushered in a new modern literature characterized by disjointed narration, fragmented identities, and splintered religious faith, was written by a man in the midst of a nervous breakdown.' Having felt "very shaky" for months,2 T.S. Eliot composed most of the poem while under the care of Dr. Roger Vittoz at a Lausanne, Switzerland, sanitarium in late 1921.3 Dr. Vittoz' role in the composition history of the text has been studied only vaguely, yet it is comparable to Ezra Pound's famous "caesarean Operation."4 If Pound was the midwife of the poem, as Wayne Koestenbaum and others (including Pound himself) have claimed, then Dr. Vittoz was the anesthesiologist on call during the delivery, guiding Eliot through the birthing process and slipping him an epidural when the pain became too great. Vittoz' therapeutic program re-educated Eliot's broken will and enabled him to complete his work. The Waste Land stands as a record of Eliot's sickness and his cure.