Home | Society | Sexuality
An illness existed for a long time, since the time of the ancient Greeks, but can no longer be found. Only women were susceptible to this sickness and it eventually got a very unusual treatment. This illness was known as Hysteria. But why did only women suffer from it? What was the connection between Hysteria and vibrators? Why are women no longer diagnosed with this disease? To begin to answer all these questions you should know the origins of the word 'hysteria', it stems from the ancient Greek word 'hystera', meaning uterus. So what does the uterus have to do with Hysteria? Well, everything actually. Throughout history the uterus was not understood and was viewed as a thing that not only brought reproduction but also sickness and disease to women. Hysteria turned out to be a great diagnosis for doctors to give their female patients. Since hysteria was caused by the uterus and everybody knew how unstable and weak women were, every illness that wasn't understood could be called Hysteria. It all comes back to the uterus and the lack of understanding of how the female reproductive system worked. But there was a definite trend of who tended to suffer from Hysteria, this included virgins, nuns, widows and the occasional housewife. But why? What do these women have in common? Sex, or a lack thereof. Women were considered unstable and weak and a lack of "hysterical paroxysm", or as we tend to refer to it, orgasm, could cause them to enter a crazed state. But women couldn't masturbate, that was a horrible, disgusting self-indulgence. So what? What could women do? There were doctors out there who could help, by providing controlled pelvic massages doctors could induce this "hysterical paroxysm" in women. But unfortunately for the doctors this process was often very long, even taking up to a few hours. Spending that much of a day for just one patient was definitely not profitable. But to help them, in the mid 1800's some doctors were able to use a water hose to massage the pelvic region. But thankfully in 1873 a new tool was created and first used in an asylum in France to treat Hysteria. This tool was called a electromechanical vibrator. This wondrous tool allowed doctors to help their patients in a matter of minutes, not hours. In the very early 1900's in-home electricity was on the rise allowing the sales of vibrators to become much more wide spread. In 1918 you could find a home vibrator advertised in the Sears catalogue that they claimed was ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.” And so vibrators became much more common place, women could use vibrators at home, which was not masturbating, since it was all in the name of keeping them healthy and sane. Unfortunately women can't use that excuse anymore as Hysteria is not a recognized illness, but fortunately they don't have to.
Article Source: http://articles-mart.com
Eric Schmidt is a writer for The Sex Toy Life.com, an online retailer of quality sex toys. He has written many articles on sexuality, health and nutrition.
Please Rate this Article
5 out of 54 out of 53 out of 52 out of 51 out of 5
Not yet Rated
