From Masturbation to Morphine — History’s Weirdest Cures for Hysteria
In case your uterus runs away…
Call a woman “crazy” today, and it is guaranteed to make her…well, crazy. That’s partly because the treatment for female hysteria has a painful and torturous past.
The first diagnosis of hysteria dates back to ancient Greece. (Hystera is the Greek word for “womb.”) In later centuries, it became a catch-all diagnosis for seizures, depression, pelvic pain, and women acting up (disobeying your husband.)
The nonsense began with the father of medicine, Hippocrates. He believed a woman’s “female seed” polluted her delicate organs unless it found an um…release. All that pent-up lady juice just sat around fermenting in her womb, and if it didn’t find its way out…she went batty.
Galen didn’t help matters. He dissected a bunch of pigs and found the secret to female hysteria — a wandering uterus. Galen believed a woman’s uterus “wandered” throughout her body, causing mischief. One minute your uterus was in place, and the next minute…boom, it had packed its bag for a seaside vacation elsewhere.
By the Victorian period, women suffered through mayhem and medical malpractice because doctors simply didn’t understand how our lady bits worked. The following were some of the most creative cures…
