Hysteria
It is assumed that the basis for diagnosis operated under the belief that women are predisposed to mental and behavioral conditions; an interpretation of sex-related differences in stress responses.
For example, doctors put strong smelling substances on the patients' vulvas to encourage the uterus to return to its proper position.
Another tactic was to smell or swallow unsavory herbs to encourage the uterus to flee back to the lower part of the female's abdomen.
[7] Ancient Romans also attributed hysteria to an abnormality in the womb; however, discarded the traditional explanation of a wandering uterus.
[5] Between the fifth and thirteenth centuries, however, the increasing influence of Christianity in the Latin West altered medical and public understanding of hysteria.
St. Augustine's writings suggested that human suffering resulted from sin, thus hysteria became perceived as satanic possession.
[7] Furthermore, during the Renaissance period many patients of hysteria were prosecuted as witches and underwent interrogations, torture, exorcisms, and execution.
[9] During this time the common point of view was that women were inferior beings, connected to Aristotle's ideas of male superiority.
Saint Thomas Aquinas supported this idea and in his writing, Summa Theologica stated "'some old women' are evil-minded; they gaze on children in a poisonous and evil way, and demons, with whom the witches enter into agreements, interacting through their eyes".
[10] This type of fear of witches and sorcery is part of the rules of celibacy and chastity imposed on the clergy.
[7] However, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries activists and scholars worked to change the perception of hysteria back to a medical condition.
[7][12] In 1859 Paul Briquet defined hysteria as a chronic syndrome manifesting in many unexplained symptoms throughout the body's organ systems.
Investigating the files, Elizabeth Lunbeck found that most of hysteric patients at this hospital, were typically single, either being young or purposefully avoiding men due to past sexual abuse.
World Wars caused military doctors to become focused on hysteria as during this time there seemed to be a rise in cases, especially under instances of high stress, in 1919 Arthur Frederick Hurst wrote that "many cases of gross hysterical symptoms occurred in soldiers who had no family or personal history of neuroses, and who were perfectly fit".
[20][21][15] In the late nineteenth century, French neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot tackled what he referred to as "the great neurosis" or hysteria.
[28] The paper explains how Freud believes his female patients' neurosis, which he labels hysteria, resulted from sexual abuse as children.
[28] Freud hypothesized that in order to cure hysteria the patient must relive the experiences through imagination in the most vivid form while under light hypnosis.
[7] For the most part, hysteria does not exist as a medical diagnosis in Western culture and has been replaced by other diagnoses such as conversion or functional disorders.
