Hydrotherapy, or water therapy, was the first technological advancement in medicine. Specifically, this psychological damage was a result of removing male sexuality from females, an idea that stems from Freuds famous Oedipal moment of recognition in which a young female realizes she has no penis, and has been castrated. [18], According to Pierre Roussel and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, femininity was a natural and essential desire for women: "Femininity is for both authors an essential nature, with defined functions, and the disease is explained by the non-fulfillment of natural desire. They were interested in a labor-saving device to spare their hands the fatigue they developed giving handjobs to a steady stream of 19th-century ladies who suffered from hysteria, a vaguely defined ailment easily recognizable today as sexual frustration. Before its classification as a mental disorder, hysteria was considered a physical ailment, first described medically in 1880 by Jean-Martin Charcot. Most recommended techniques were bimanual, meaning 1 hand was placed outside the body on the abdomen, and the other inserted into either the vagina or anus to perform massage, until a paroxysmal convulsion (we now call these orgasms) was achieved. [6], Through the Middle Ages, another cause of dramatic symptoms could be found: demonic possession. Victorian Doctors Had An Interesting Treatment For Female Hysteria ), And Helen King, a classics professor at the Open University in the United Kingdom, wrote a lengthy scholarly rebuttal of Mainess use of Greek and Latin sources in 2011. This is also when it was noted both men and women could contract hysteria. Well into the 19th century, treatment for female hysteria could even land women in mental institutions. None of her English-language sources even mentions production of paroxysms by massage or anything else that could remotely suggest an orgasm., Instead, they argue, Maines conceals this lack of support by relying on a wink and nod approach to primary sourcing and by padding her argument with a mass of tangential citations., In an interview, Maines said that she has heard variations of the papers criticism beforeand that her argument in The Technology of Orgasm was really only a hypothesis, anyway. She makes the claim that this is a fact, and it happened, Schatzberg says. - Final delirium. But discerning women and advertising copywriters knew very well what massagers were all about. You are letting facts slide over into what might fairly be called interpretation, that reviewer wrote. [27], With so many possible symptoms, historically hysteria was considered a catchall diagnosis where any unidentifiable ailment could be assigned. During the ancient ages, medical vibrators were used for pelvic massages to treat female hysteria. Bella is an intern with Planned Parenthood in Florida, https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3480686/, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tz4QmbTDRYs, https://www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/history-quackery/history-hysteria, https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/the-controversy-of-female-hysteria, a Sexual Health Education and Reproductive Health Blog. - Histrionic behavior (being overly dramatic or excitable). The History of Hysteria and How it Impacts You Are these side effects of Hydrocortisone? [32] By the 1980s, feminists began to reclaim hysteria, using it as a symbol of the systematic oppression of women and reclaiming the term for themselves. The (male) medical communitys interest in female My daughter has been diagnosed with end-stage renal failure and is on dialysis. Primary Hysteria: It is caused due to substantial personality disorder. It is hopeful to see modern medicine moving away from what once was the glorified opinions of men on womens bodies and behavior and towards successful research and treatment of ailments that have affected reproductive health for centuries. Why was it a major point of contention for second wave feminists, and how was it treated? And their standard treatment, bleeding, killed more people than it helped. However, all forms of anxiety can cause severe emotional reactions. - Write in a diary. The medical field today reflects issues of sexism and prejudice, the same issues that women, who were viewed and treated during the early conceptualization of female hysteria, also faced. During the 1920s, vibrators began showing up in stag films, which stripped the devices of their disguise and quickly made them socially unacceptable. I didnt intend it that way, but boy, people sure took it, ran with it., Maines added that she was a little surprised it took so long for other scholars to question her argument, given how admittedly slender the evidence she gave in The Technology of Orgasm was. At the time, the public viewed physicians with tremendous distrust. Timeline: Female Hysteria and the Sex Toys Used to Treat It For hysteria unrelieved by husbandly lust, and for widows, and for single and unhappily married women, doctors advised horseback riding, which, for some, provided enough clitoral stimulation to trigger orgasm. [30] He was convinced that deep conflicts in the mind, some concerning instinctual drives for sex and aggression, were driving the behavior of those with hysteria. One 1903 advertisement in the Sears Catalogue touted a popular massager as a delightful companion . There are many examples in the media of female hysteria, geared towards highlighting the flaws in the treatment and healthcare provided to women.