It was thought to correlate with the sexual activity of a female. At the time, the public viewed physicians with tremendous distrust. More to the point, Professor Maines has always maintained that her assertions were a hypothesis open to further exploration.. Hysteria was basically the medical explanation for everything that men found mysterious or unmanageable in women, a conclusion only supported by mens (historic and continuing) dominance over medicine, and hysterias continued use as a synonym for over-emotional or deranged. Its also worth noting how many of the problems physicians were attempting to fix in female patients, were not problems when they presented in male patients. However, all forms of anxiety can cause severe emotional reactions. Chronic hand fatigue meant that some doctors had trouble maintaining the treatment long enough to produce the desired (and lucrative) result. In many cultures spirit possession is a way of explaining mental trauma. There are many examples in the media of female hysteria, geared towards highlighting the flaws in the treatment and healthcare provided to women. There are many examples in the media of female hysteria geared towards highlighting the flaws in the treatment and healthcare provided to women. "Hysteria" and the Strange History of Vibrators Around the 1850s, American physician Silas Weir Mitchell, who had a special interest in hysteria, started promoting the rest cure as a treatment for this condition. [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. And since at least the second century, a good orgasm, or rather hysterial paroxysm, was considered a suitable treatmentat least when practiced by a medical Other remedies included a large belladonna plaster placed at the pit of the stomach and vaginal injections with a solution of acetate of lead. | In one passage, Maines alludes to a technique described in 1660 by the British surgeon Nathaniel Highmore. In Western culture, other diagnoses like conversion or functional disorders have taken the place of hysteria as a medical diagnosis for the most part. It fits so well into this. [5] The idea stemmed from the belief that Hysteria was a kind of pre-feminist rebellion against the oppressive defined social roles placed upon women. All things considered, most doctors and women alike were glad to see hysteria deleted from official Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders in 1980.