The word hysteria is a transliteration of the foreign word hysteria, which now means means to describe the state of a person grasping at straws and storming out. Did you know that the word originally referred to a disease that only women could get? Did you know that this disease does not exist? This article is about the history of this disease and how stupid and prejudiced our foreign ancestors were. It's not easy to organize because it's stupid and sexist. Women will probably be pissed off if they read it, but at least you'll be less inclined to travel to ancient times after reading it.
Egyptian papyrus texts from 1900 B.C. record the occurrence of a mentally unstable, anxious irritability in women and consider it a disease. The disease known as hysteria occurred in Ancient Greece, which I did mention in general terms in the last section on opium. Ancient Greek medicine theorized that the uterus was free to move around the body, and the word hysteria means "moving uterus". The uterus was moving around, so the woman was hysterical.
In fact, the uterus does not move around in the body, I do not need to explain. But that's what the ancient Greeks thought. The philosopher Plato thought that the uterus followed odors around, saying that the uterus was actually "an animal in an animal's body". So you can attract the uterus to a good spot with something that smells good.
By the second century in Rome, Galen (again) said that women had this problem because they hadn't been able to free themselves from "female semen" (don't ask me what that is, I don't know). The disease was later called "widow's disease" because of the belief that hysteria was caused by a lack of sex. So, as a doctor who has taken the Hippocratic Oath, you need to help the widows out, and you know what to do (what the fuck?). There's also a technical term for this, called pelvic massage. The basic idea is that if a woman doesn't have sex, her uterus gets upset and runs all over her body, so she gets hysterical.
There is also the complete opposite view, another contemporary of the famous doctor Solanas think with sex has nothing to do with, as long as the bath according to the massage shopping and eat some chocolate and so on. He also believed that the uterus doesn't run amok (only occasionally), though his view didn't become mainstream.
Well actually ancient doctors weren't that disgusting, they only used their hands and it was indeed only for healing, don't get me wrong.
Medieval times. You could rub your lower body with something aromatic, and when it tasted good, so did the hysteria.
If your hysteria isn't cured by all sorts of methods, then there's good reason to think you're occupied by the devil, at which point we need to exorcise you, and if that doesn't work, we might need to burn you.
Hysteria, as a "disease", has a very broad definition. Any behavior that is "wrong" can be classified as hysteria. Nervousness, dizziness, insomnia, muscle spasms, irritability, frigidity, sexual hunger, anorexia, bulimia, or "love of trouble" all count. In other words, any time a man is unhappy with you, he can give you a hysterical hat. Hysteria is one of the ways that patriarchal societies control women.
In fact, it is true that women are more prone to physiological mental disorders, such as menstruation, postpartum, menopause, but these are not the source of the "disease" of hysteria, which comes from men wanting to control women. Some real physical illnesses, such as epilepsy, are also categorized as hysteria. Women are inherently inferior to men, so one mental illness is enough.
Although the idea that the uterus moves has since fallen out of favor, the use of orgasm as a treatment for hysteria has remained mainstream.
A prominent British doctor in the 1600s argued that female orgasms were basically impossible because you needed to massage your belly and slap your forehead at the same time, a maneuver so difficult that only a gymnast could do it. Another doctor made the assertion that all women get hysterical.
In the 1800s, the understanding of hysteria was expanded to include the stresses of modern society, and societies prided themselves on diagnosing more hysteria as a sign that their society was more modern.
Although society is becoming more modern, people's understanding has not changed much, and in 1859 a French doctor listed 75 symptoms of hysteria, adding that the list was far from complete.
Based on the theory that orgasm can cure hysteria, after 1860, people invented a lot of ways to promote female orgasm. For example, in the beginning there was a tool for pouring water into the vagina, and in 1869 Americans invented the steam-powered vibrating table, which was a large table with a vibrating ball sticking out of it, which you could then tie and fasten to a person, and then in 1880 someone else invented the battery-operated vibrator, which was said to have been invented by a doctor who was so tired of addressing the needs of his patients with his hands that his joints were going to give out.
In 1890, Sigmund Freud said that this disease does not necessarily need to be so troublesome to cure, we can use dialog therapy. This is the originator of counseling. Counseling still helps some of the anxious people, so Freud probably did help some of the women. Of course Freud was just as unreliable about hysteria, and he was lucky to be able to help.
If you can't afford a battery vibrator, you can go for a horseback ride, a car ride, or a desperate rocking chair to alleviate your symptoms. You can also buy an electronic saddle, which works on the same principle as the electronic children's rocking chairs in front of convenience stores.
By the 1900s, all sorts of vibration machines had been introduced, but these were "medical devices" that were not to be used in the home, and after 1920 they started appearing in pornography, and in 1952 the American Psychiatric Association finally spoke up and said that hysteria was not really a disease, so the story could end there. And that was the end of the story.
Until 2009, Alabama ordinances required that vibrators be used for medical purposes only, and that they be purchased with a warranty, or they wouldn't be sold to you.
There have actually been men diagnosed with hysteria, but it's extremely rare, only about a dozen or so in history combined.