The Strange (But True) History of Hysteria
Doctors once believed that the uterus would just start wandering around your body, leading to "hysteria." Spoiler Alert: That's not a thing! Isn't it great to be alive...
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[ ♪ Intro ] When you hear the term ‘hysteria’, you might think of a frenzied group of people — like shoppers on Black Friday. But for a long time that word meant something different. Hysteria was a mental condition attributed specifically to uterus problems, and it became a sort of catch-all diagnosis for any women’s health problems doctors couldn’t figure out. The term — which even came from the Greek word for uterus — was coined by the physician Hippocrates around 500 BCE. But it was acknowledged as far back as in Ancient Egypt, a thousand years before then. It’s no longer recognized today, but it has a complicated history full of strange explanations. Including one that said that the uterus just sort of wandered around the body, causing problems. Sometimes ...
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[ ♪ Intro ] When you hear the term ‘hysteria’, you might think of a frenzied group of people — like shoppers on Black Friday. But for a long time that word meant something different. Hysteria was a mental condition attributed specifically to uterus problems, and it became a sort of catch-all diagnosis for any women’s health problems doctors couldn’t figure out. The term — which even came from the Greek word for uterus — was coined by the physician Hippocrates around 500 BCE. But it was acknowledged as far back as in Ancient Egypt, a thousand years before then. It’s no longer recognized today, but it has a complicated history full of strange explanations. Including one that said that the uterus just sort of wandered around the body, causing problems. Sometimes ...
