# What was hysteria (as a medical term)?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [February 20, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123 "2004-02-20T01:38:02Z")
**Posts on this page:** 8
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 1:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/1 "2004-02-20T01:38:02Z")
I have a memory of my textbook back in freshman Psychology 101 telling the history of how Sigmund Freud developed his theories on psychoanalysis. It said Freud came up with these ideas while treating women who were diagnosed with “hysteria.” The professor mentioned that hysteria is not used as a medical term or diagnosis any more, but didn’t explain exactly what doctors meant by this term. All I know is that the word is derived from the Greek word for ‘womb’, so obviously it must have been a condition that affected only women.
But what _was_ it? Nobody ever explained this. Apparently a lot of women had it back then, but they don’t have it now?
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/2 "2004-02-20T01:53:15Z")
One definition was that of a sexually aroused woman. Seriously.
> [@](#):
>
> For centuries, women diagnosed with “hysteria”–a “disease paradigm,” in Rachel P. Maines’s felicitous phrase, thought to result from a lack of sexual intercourse or gratification–were treated by massaging their genitals in order to induce “paroxysm.” Male physicians, however, considered the practice drudgery, and sought various ways of avoiding the task, often foisting it off on midwives or, starting in the late 19th century, employing mechanical devices. Eventually, these devices became available for purchase and home use; one such “portable vibrator” is advertised in the 1918 Sears, Roebuck catalog as an "aid that every woman appreciates
See this book: [http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801866464/ref=ase\_popularscience0c/104-2823442-5204734](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0801866464/ref=ase_popularscience0c/104-2823442-5204734)
QtM, MD
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/3 "2004-02-20T01:56:36Z")
So you’re telling me that doctors, to put it bluntly, masturbated their female patients? :eek: This is a joke, right? Please tell me you’re not serious.
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### Author:  [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/4 "2004-02-20T01:59:49Z")
Some of those old “medical devices” were pretty cool. Picture a foot pumped flywheel with a flexible snake and a vibrating tip, similar to old-timey dentist drills.
I can see why the doctors considered it “drudgery”, because the wives weren’t getting any at home and would too often make appointments to go to the doctor in order to get off. The doctors were almost made into male prostitutes in that sense.
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### Author:  [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/5 "2004-02-20T02:00:57Z")
Sort of. They’re saying that the theory was that this “condition” could be resolved by masturbating a woman to orgasm, and that the doctors _did not want to do this_ :eek:
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/6 "2004-02-20T02:13:24Z")
**Jomo** , I’m perfectly serious. The book I cited was published by the Johns Hopkins University Press. They generally don’t produce flights of fancy, unless they’re labeled as such.
Here’s another quote from the book
> [@](#):
>
> One interesting historical snippet involves a disease that was, at one time, thought to afflict ¾ of women. The affliction was called hysteria. It was believed that hysteria was a sickness, or malfunctioning of the womb (this word shares a root with hysterectomy). The symptoms included chronic arousal, persistent erotic fantasy, vaginal lubrication and general melancholy or irrational behavior. One treatment for this affliction, which has been recorded as far back as AD 1st century, is described in one medical digest from the 17th century. The physician, or a midwife would “massage the genitalia with one finger inside using oil of lilies, musk root…”. In short, the doctor would bring the sick woman to orgasm. This bizarre practice was performed into the 20th century.
you can read more excerpts from the book here: [http://www.queendom.com/sex-files/orgasm/orgasm-history.html](http://www.queendom.com/sex-files/orgasm/orgasm-history.html)
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### Author:  [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/7 "2004-02-20T02:19:24Z")
But to address your OP, hysteria’s definition has become rather broad.
[quote]
The term “hysteria” has been in use for over 2,000 years and its definition has become broader and more diffuse over time. In modern psychology and psychiatry, hysteria is a feature of hysterical disorders in which a patient experiences physical symptoms that have a psychological, rather than an organic, cause; and histrionic personality disorder characterized by excessive emotions, dramatics, and attention-seeking behavior.\*\*
Much more info here: [http://www.ehendrick.org/healthy/000729.htm](http://www.ehendrick.org/healthy/000729.htm)
Just don’t forget hysteria had its origins in female sexual arousal.
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### Author:  [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)
#### Post date: [February 20, 2004, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-hysteria-as-a-medical-term/230123/8 "2004-02-20T03:33:26Z")
I can totally understand women becoming chronically frustrated and upset when their husbands had not a clue about the clitoris. All those poor women over the centuries! But couldn’t they \ self-medicate?
Weren’t there any boards of medical ethics review in Freud’s day? If a doctor tried that “therapy” nowadays, you can just imagine the uproar and outrage if it got out. But this practice was, not so long ago, considered normal. The mind boggles. Now I understand why my Psych 101 textbook hushed up the real hystery, I mean history, of psychoanalysis. The medical profession must be embarrassed to have to admit this.
I read somewhere once that Freud considered the clitoral orgasm to be “immature” and inferior, and that only the vaginal orgasm should count as a real orgasm. I always wondered what the hell he could have been thinking. It didn’t make sense. Now this lends insight into Freud’s attitude. He was just bored and tired of repetitively…
\
_I poked and stroked till my wrist got numb
But I still didn’t hear no dynamo hum_
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