Hysteria During The 19th Century

Hysteria, a disorder associated widely with women in the late 19th century, has since disappeared from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Although this diagnosis has gradually declined, during the late 19th century there was an increase of European women with this doctors’ diagnosis. The leading medical experts in Europe believed various different cause along with a symptomology expression. Sigmund Freud, Jean Charcot and Josef Breuer were some of the experts who were proposing the treatment of Hysteria during the late nineteenth century. These experts proposed treatments that varied from manipulation of the female body to psychoanalysis. These symptoms expressed could range change with time as did the treatment for
In this primary source, hysteria is defined as a form of insanity, exclusive to women, that is characterized by manic or melancholic episodes accompanied by sexual delusions or excitement and has that has origins in the female reproductive system. Along with the definition and list of symptoms, there are examples of cases dealing with hysteria. Further, into the manual, the proper treatments for the mental diagnosis are outlined such as the tonic regiment which consists of open-air work and chalybeates tonics. “A Manual of Psychological Medicine” was written in part by John Charles Bucknill and Daniel Hack Tuke and published in 1879. This source is useful since it was written by two medical experts of the 19th century. John Charles Bucknill was a psychologist who also founded the Asylum Journal, now known as the British Journal of Psychiatry, and was appointed Chancellor’s Visitor from 1862 to 1876. Daniel Hack Tuke, who wrote the manual alongside Bucknill, received his M.D in 1853 at Heidelberg and was renown in his respective field. This source is not the only source that can be useful to answer the question of treatment of
Although this source as little information the treatment of hysteria since it only explains the importance of isolation treatment, it does offer knowledge on cases of hysteria and symptomatology that was looked for hysteria. In the lectures Charcot goes into detail on each case from the diagnosis to the treatment applied to individuals suffering from hysteria. Jean-Martin Charcot, the founder of modern neurology, was a leading medical expert that will give a holistic understanding hysteria. The lectures were translated by Thomas Savill and published in 1889 on the New Sydenham Society