Female hysteria

Rare card · No. 66820

Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis for women. It was described as exhibiting a wide array of symptoms, including anxiety, shortness of breath, fainting, nervousness, exaggerated and impulsive sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, sexually impulsive behavior, and a "tendency to cause trouble for others". It is no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for hundreds of years in Western Europe. In extreme cases, the woman may have been forced to enter an insane asylum or to undergo surgical hysterectomy. In Western medicine, hysteria was considered both common and chronic among women. Though it was categorized as a disease at the time, modern day analyses suggest that hysteria's symptoms can be explained by the normal fluctuations of women's sexuality.

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