EBOOK Hysteria: The Biography

The nineteenth century seems to have been full of hysterical women - or so they        were diagnosed. Where are they now? The very disease no longer exists. In this        fascinating account, Andrew Scull tells the story of Hysteria - an illness that        disappeared not through medical endeavour, but through growing understanding and        cultural change. More generally, it raises the question of how diseases are framed,        and how conceptions of a disease change through history.The lurid history of        hysteria makes fascinating reading. Charcot's clinics showed off flamboyantly        'hysterical' patients taking on sexualized poses, and among the visiting        professionals was one Sigmund Freud. Scull discusses the origins of the idea of        hysteria, the development of a neurological approach by John Sydenham and others,        hysteria as a fashionable condition, and its growth from the 17th century. Some        regarded it as a peculiarly English malady, 'the natural concomitant of        England'sgreater civilization and refinement'. Women were the majority of patients,        and the illness became associated with female biology, resulting in some gruesome        'treatments'. Charcot and Freud were key practitioners defining the nature of the        illness. But curiously, the illness seemed to swap gender duringthe First World War        when male hysterics frequently suffering from shell shock were also subjected to        brutal 'treatments'. Subsequently, the 'disease' declined and eventually        disappeared, at least in professional circles, though attenuated elements remain,        reclassified for instance as post-traumatic stress disorder.Hysteria: the biography        is part of the Oxford series, Biographies of Diseases, edited by William and Helen        Bynum. In each individual volume an expert historian or clinician tells the story of        a particular disease or condition throughout history - not only in terms of growing        medical understanding of its nature and cure, but also shifting social and cultural        attitudes, and changes in the meaning of the name of the disease itself.