Hysteria: the epidemic of graceful swooning by Kit Morgan

 Hi, Kit Morgan here and today I want to talk about a mysterious condition that women developed, (in epidemic numbers, mind) back in the 19th century. An entire syndrome even doctors sometimes interpreted as a power grab rather than a genuine illness. This new disease was called “Hysteria.” Of course there were different levels of this which I won't get into. But at it's basic level, it involved a lot of swooning.

Doctors were baffled. Hysteria appeared, not only as fits and fainting, but in every other form:  hysterical loss of voice, loss of appetite, hysterical coughing or sneezing, and, of course, hysterical screaming, laughing, and crying. The disease spread wildly, yet almost exclusively in a select clientele of urban middle and upper-class white women between the ages of 15 and 45. Doctors became obsessed with this most confusing, mysterious and rebellious of diseases. 

 

In a lot of ways, it was the ideal disease for the doctors. After all, it was never fatal and it required an almost endless amount of medical attention. On the other hand, it was not an ideal disease from the point of view of the husband and family of the afflicted woman. This put doctors on the spot. It was essential to their professional self-esteem either to find an organic basis for the disease, and of course cure it, or to expose it as a clever charade. Women weren’t too happy when the latter occurred.

 

 

Doctors began to observe that many “afflicted” never had fits when alone, and only when there was something soft to fall on. One doctor accused patients of pinning their hair in such a way that it would fall luxuriously when they fainted. The hysterical “type” began to be characterized as a “pretty tyrant” with a “taste for power” over her husband, servants, children and, if possible, her doctor.

 

 But doctors’ accusations had some truth to them. The “hysterical fit” for many women was the only acceptable outburst they had for emotions like anger, despair, or simply to expel pent up energy. However, it would be years before men recognized women as anything other than sickly, weak and fragile.

 

Perhaps this is why we are so attracted to strong female characters of Western romances and other stories. Sure, we don’t mind if a heroine faints. But it’s more fun to watch her fight for what she wants. It’s hard for a woman of the 21^st-century to relate to the hysterical fainting woman of the 19^th-century. Though we do like to have one in a story or two, don’t we? Sometimes as an antagonist character, sometimes as a secondary character. They’re still fun. Not only that, but historically accurate in a lot of cases. To sum it up, if you lived in the nineteenth century, one could probably make a good living making fainting couches. 

Until Next Time

Kit