History of Science 2220 Study Guide - Electrotherapy, Erectile Dysfunction, Soho
21 Nov 2013
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Causes: being a woman, being poor, being childless, anxiety, stress, social role differentiation, neglect of skin, overwork, nursing ill, bad air, poor diet. Egotism is the most prominent and the only constant moral symptom of hysteria. Symptoms: self-centered behaviour, egotism, loss of control. Describes a state of tension or excitement in which there is a temporary loss of control over the emotions. Workman: female insanity is, in large proportion of cases, merely a reflex disturbance of the brain. Treatments: marriage, placebos, bleeding, blistering, and providing doses of opium, clitoridectomy, cauterization, threatening to burn them (psychological manipulation) Massages and electricity for production of waste and nourishment of the nervous system also emerged. To compensate for their in-ability to cure hysteria some physicians hypothesized that hysteria was not a real disease but feigned, which of course placed responsibility for lack of a cure on the patient.
