The Treatment of Women for Hysteria and PMS During Victorian Times

The most fascinating subject to me involves illnesses of the human mind and how they were treated before the invention of antidepressants. Confinement to mental institutions, lobotomies, electroshock therapy (not in the way it is used now but more harsh) and other inhumane practices ran rampant as issues involving mental health were quite unknown and in some cases, scary.

Female hysteria is an archaic diagnosis where many conditions of unknown origin were grouped together into one encompassing subject matter. Hysteria received attention long before Josef Breuer and Sigmund Freud's case study of Anna O. The Greeks gave it the name hystera to symbolize their belief it was caused by a woman's uterus wandering throughout her body and strangling the victim.

The case of Anna O. brought hysteria into the mainstream. Hysteria had many symptoms due to it being a catch-all diagnosis for not understanding the medical cause of certain symptoms. Some symptoms of hysteria were insomnia, fluid retention, nervousness, faintness, irritability, loss of appetite, and my favorite "a tendency to cause trouble." The tendency to cause trouble must be taken tongue in cheek as hysteria was most commonly diagnosed during the 1890's-long before the women's movement. Some of this tendency to cause trouble may have been from women insisting on being treated differently from their husbands.

The other symptoms sound much like something a lot of women are familiar with-premenstrual syndrome. As a matter of fact, what was once considered hysteria is now more commonly associated with PMS. Until the 1980's, PMS was seen as an imagined disease or one related to hysteria. Hysteria became a lesser diagnosed condition almost as immediately as PMS entered the vernacular.

In 1859, one physician stated he believed one-fourth of all women suffered from hysteria. Treatment for female hysteria was very interesting. Before the case of Anna O, psychotherapy was not widely available if at all. Treatment for hysteria involved bland food, bed rest, seclusion, and sensory deprivation.Physicians noticed the number of women who complained of hysteria were disproportionately single, nuns, and unhappily married women. Another prescription was marriage for single women, intercourse if married, or vaginal massage to reach hysterical paroxysm (orgasm) as a last resort. While physicians realized a connection between hysteria and an unhappy sex life, they remained distant enough for the connection between what they were doing and sex to keep this as a practice until fairly modern times (one source that began me on the road to writing about this idea said the 1950's).

Before the creation of machines to help reach hysterical paroxysm (or orgasm), vaginal massage could take hours. After massage devices were invented, it became much easier for vaginal massage to obtain the intended result. Until vibrators became used in offices (or even the home since this was during a time when house calls were made), massage was done by hand and later by the use of water. The 1870's brought about the invention of the vibrator and soon doctors used it instead. By the 1890's, this invention was available for home usage and the number of women being treated in that manner at the physician's office drastically declined.

The days of doctors assisting in helping their female patients achieve orgasm are now over. One must wonder what effect that had on patient/doctor relationships. Did the doctor truly not enjoy his work? How many women trusted a physician for this treatment without realizing what was happening? Sex and orgasms was not a subject every woman knew about. The history of doctor assisted hysterical paroxysm makes me proud to live in a time period where sex is not seen as shameful but as a natural and beautiful thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_O.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_hysteria

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premenstrual_syndrome