Hysteria: The Biography

by Andrew Scull

The nineteenth century seems to have been full of hysterical women--or so they were diagnosed. Where are they now? The very disease no longer exists. In this fascinating account, Andrew Scull tells the story of hysteria--an illness that disappeared not through medical endeavor, but through growing understanding and cultural change. The lurid history of hysteria makes fascinating reading. Charcot's clinics showed off flamboyantly "hysterical" patients taking on sexualized poses, and among the visiting professionals was one Sigmund Freud. Scull discusses the origins of the idea of hysteria, the development of a neurological approach by John Sydenham and others, hysteria as a fashionable condition, and its growth from the 17th century. Subsequently, the "disease" declined and eventually disappeared.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Psychology, Medicine, Psychiatry, Historical, Womens

256 pages

First published October 8, 2009

About the author

Andrew T. Scull (born 1947) is a British-born sociologist whose research is centered on the social history of medicine and particularly psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Science Studies at University of California, San Diego and recipient of the Roy Porter Medal for lifetime contributions to the history of medicine. His books include Madhouse: A Tragic Tale of Megalomania and Modern Medicine and Madness in Civilization: A Cultural History of Insanity.

Scull was born in Edinburgh, Scotland, the son of Allan Edward Scull, a civil engineer and Marjorie née Corrigan, a college teacher. He received his BA with first class honors from Balliol College, Oxford. He then studied at Princeton University, receiving his MA in Sociology in 1971 and his Ph.D. in 1974. He was a postdoc at University College London in 1976-77.

Scull taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1973 until 1978 when was appointed to the sociology faculty at University of California, San Diego as an Associate Professor. He was appointed a full professor in 1982, and Distinguished Professor in 1994.

Reviews

[Jam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two things:

1) This is a fun read, in the way interesting histories of medicine are, and

2) Thank fuck I'm a woman now and not at, you know, any other point in history.

[Eternauta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ενδιαφέρουσα αλλά προβληματική εισαγωγή σε μια "ψυχοσωματική" ασθένεια τόσο παλιά όσο και η ανθρώπινη ιστορία.
Ο Scull - ένας από τους πιο έγκριτους ιστορικούς της ψυχιατρικής - επιχειρεί να γράψει μια κατανοητή και βατή περίληψη των ιατρικών ερμηνειών και παρερμηνειών μιας νόσου που αλλάζει ονόματα, θεραπευτικές αγωγές αλλά ακόμα και συμπτώματα στο πέρασμα των αιώνων.

Δυστυχώς από αυτήν την "βιογραφία" απουσιάζουν πλήρως οι φωνές των ίδιων των ασθενών. Μαθαίνουμε πολλά για τις συχνά σαδιστικές αντιδράσεις ψυχιάτρων , γυναικολόγων και νευρολόγων σε μια κατά κύριο λόγο πολιτισμικά κατασκευασμένη "ψυχική ασθένεια" αλλά ποτέ δεν ακούμε την οπτική των ίδιων των πασχόντων.

Η σιωπή αυτή είναι ακόμα πιο εκωφαντική αφού ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας υπογραμμίζει τις έμφυλες διαστάσεις της διάγνωσης και των διαφόρων μεθόδων "θεραπείας" και υπογραμμίζει πόσο βαθιά εμποτισμένες σε στερεότυπα για την γυναικεία φύση και σεξουαλικότητα ήταν (και παραμένουν) οι ιατρικές περιγραφές της υστερίας. Και όμως στο μόνο κεφάλαιο που οι ίδιοι ασθενείς "μιλούν" γλαφυρά για την εμπειρία τους είναι αυτό που αναφέρεται στους στρατιώτες του Α' Π.Π. διεγνωσμένους με shell-shock (το αντίστοιχο του σύγχρονου Post - traumatic stress disorder)!

Προσωπικά, βρίσκω εκνευριστικό και τον διασυρμό της φροϋδικής / ψυχαναλυτικής προσέγγισης, κάτι που τείνει να γίνει ο κανόνας στην αγγλόφωνη ιστοριογραφία της ψυχιατρικής. Επίσης αρνητική εντύπωση κάνει και η πλήρης απουσία αναφορών σε σύγχρονές μας κατηγορίες ασθένειας όπως οι "κρίσεις πανικού" αλλά και η αδιαφορία για την πρόοδο της ενδοκρινολογίας και των απαντήσεων που ενδεχομένως να έχει δώσει σε μια σειρά από συμπτώματα που στο παρελθόν χαρακτηρίζονταν ως "υστερικά".

Σε κάθε περίπτωση το βιβλίο είναι ευανάγνωστο, πλούσιο σε πληροφορίες και χρήσιμο ως εισαγωγικό κείμενο σε όσους ενδιαφέρονται για το θέμα. Παρόλαυτα, θεωρώ ότι το Female Malady της Elaine Showalter παραμένει μια πιο σφαιρική και ουσιώδης ανάλυση και ας είναι κατά 20+ χρονάκια πιο ηλικιωμένο.

[Ashley Thijssing · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gives a good overview on what hysteria actually is and gives an insight on the dangers of the misconstructed analysis on female health. Must read for historians interested in female history and mental health

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I had some bones to pick over this one, generally it was horrifying enough to want to go kill all the time travel machines inventors so that no one, ever would have to have a look at the way women were treated back in time.

[Michelle Hoogterp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting and fascinating brief biography of hysteria and it's travels through medical history. Unfortunately the author completely ignores the brief period during which manual manipulation of women and the electric vibrator came into practice. Perhaps he felt that was too sensational to discuss; however folks will likely be looking to learn more about this and at the very least the author could've acknowledged this medical occurrence and spent a paragraph or two discussing it if not wanting to spend an entire chapter.

[Chandra Powers Wersch · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.7 Very Euro-American centric, and while Scull does explain why he focuses on those regions, I can't help but wonder if other cultures have had anything similar to a hysteria label applied to women, or how they interacted with those deemed "insane" (did other cultures have "insane" people and how was that judged? And if not, why not? Why weren't hysteria and insanity present?) I guess the definitive title "THE Biography" made me hope for more of a global comparative history.
But I did enjoy Scull's research on hysteria in Europe and the U.S.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a phenomenal book-- excellent scholarship, approachable writing style, and less than 200 pages! Not only did this book help tremendously with my research, it provided a model for the kind of scholarly writing I hope to produce one day. For readers interested in how hysteria evolved from about the 17-20th centuries, this is an excellent overview. It covers humors, Freud, she'll shock, and much more by drawing on the published medical research, physicians letters, and retrospective evaluations of the medical knowledge by contemporary researchers. It is an excellent companion to Edward Shorter's work and would, I expect, be fairly easy to teach with.

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's interesting to read on the history surrounding hysteria and it's evolution throughout the ages. I found the book easy to pickup yet slightly fleeting in certain areas.
The final chapter made for more depressing reading as the author touches upon modern society's stigmatized illnesses like CFS. It very much came across as the opinions of someone uninformed in the subject; belonging to a book twenty years previous.
It also highlighted how little we have progressed in the acceptance and demystifying of certain conditions.

[Fern Adams · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting book tracing back the history of hysteria and the idea of illnesses being psychosomatic. I was expecting a bit more from it but it is a good point to start off researching from and isn’t too academic.

[Mary Havens · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean, it's a historical and cultural dive into hysteria so it's a bit technical. The personal accounts were, by far, my favorite parts. The dive into "male hysteria" which is actually naming PTSD, was very interesting.
18th/19th century doctors tried to diagnose hysteria by pinpointing physical symptoms while modern doctors focus on mental disorders, even if their patients want a neurological diagnosis. I found that to be interesting as well as the idea that shell shock, combat exhaustion, and PTSD were all terms that were massaged to downplay mental illness. The reason? So the soldiers could continue fighting instead of getting help for their very real breakdowns.
While hysteria may not be a term that is diagnosed formally, it's history is interesting. I hope to find more in this series "Biographies of Disease".

[Geertje · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though this book is only 200 pages, it thoroughly explores what people thought hysteria was, what caused it, and who suffered from it, and how and why that changed throughout time. I highly recommend it for anyone interested in this particular topic and, more broadly, physchology and psychoanalysis.

[WandaGioia · Rating 4 out of 5]

it gives a good overview of the topic. The focus lies mainly on the medical field, which is fine, but it doesn't go very deep. For starters, it is educational and helps to grasp an understanding of the term 'Hysteria'.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked up Hysteria: The Disturbing History when I went to visit the Bedlam Exhibition at the Wellcome Collection on 8 October 2016. Due to the fact that one of the main characters of the book I'm currently writing is put into an asylum for 9 years, I was hoping to learn a little bit about the treatment of the patients in the hospital during the 18th century, attitudes to madness during those times, patient recovery (if any) and also perhaps a little bit about the hospital itself. However, the exhibition was significantly more art and literature-based than I was expecting and I wasn't able to glean much that was informative or useful, so I was hoping that this book - along with a few others that I picked up in the shop - might fill in the gaps.

This book is very well-written and I found Andrew Scull's narrative style engaging, despite having to refer to the glossary upon occasion to look up words I've never heard of (e.g. 'parturition' - childbirth). Starting with the first use of the term hysteria in 1602 up until it's disappearance from modern-day diagnoses, Scull gives a relatively short history of the 'disease', addressing changing guises, treatments and attitudes of the medical progression across a large period of time. He also explores how doctors struggled to pin hysteria down to a physiological cause, the notion of a mental illness at the time being completely non-existent. The chapter about 'shell-shock' during World War I as a form of 'male-hysteria' I found particularly interesting, as the only form of hysteria I was familiar with was the 'woman's disease', linked to their 'inferior' biology and repressed sexuality to diminish them and write off their emotions and experiences as nonsense.

Certainly this book does dwell on this latter aspect of the disease quite a bit. If you're a woman and hadn't felt before that being labelled as 'hysterical' was insulting, you certainly will after reading this book! There's plenty of gory, upsetting detail as to some of the more brutal treatment of hysterical women (and men too, but mostly women) included within these pages, including female genital mutilation and Freud's, quite frankly, disgusting treatment of his sexually abused patient Ida Bauer aka. Dora. Surprisingly, the opposite end of the spectrum for treatment - manual genital stimulation - that famously led to the invention of the vibrator is completely ignored. I found this very odd considering how Scull also went to great lengths to illustrate how some doctors felt victims of hysteria were taking 'flight into illness' for the secondary gains that a sick role could provide.

It's actually in relation to this last point that I dropped my rating from five stars to four. In the conclusion to his book, Scull talks about the disappearance of the disease of hysteria, and how it has since been redefined as other diagnoses such as post-traumatic stress disorder, post-natal depression etc. However, rather than talking about a more developed scientific understanding of mental illnesses and changing cultural attitudes towards women, Scull then spends an inordinate amount of time almost discrediting those who claim to suffer from mental illnesses to conclude that hysteria (in it's more stereotypical, hypochondriac form) has never really disappeared, citing ME and chronic-fatigue syndrome as particular sources of contention. This gave me a bad taste in my mouth, as whilst our modern-day understanding of mental illness is by no-means perfect, ever-changing, and often driven by the profits made by Big Pharma, simply dismissing claims of mental illness as being all in the victim's head is completely counter-productive. The very definition of a mental illness is that it is in the victim's head, but that doesn't mean that their suffering is not real or unworthy of treatment. To automatically assume that the patient is making it up for attention is dangerous.

Despite the book's conclusion being a bit of a let down, overall I really enjoyed this book. I do not read non-fiction very often so to keep me engaged for 200-odd pages is an achievement in itself.

[Nut Meg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although an interesting subject, Scull provides a level of detail more typical of a wide ranging historical overview with limited discussion of each topic, as opposed to an exclusive exploration of a single "disease." The writing style suggests that this may have been the result of efforts to appeal to a lay audience, especially given the presence of a glossary of medical terms at the end. Whatever the reason, Scull's chapters correlate with particular periods and medical interpretations of Hysteria, starting with the 17th century when physicians first began diagnosing what was previously attributed to witchcraft, as a disease. Scull makes a point of discussing the gendered nature of the diagnosis and how prejudices about mental illness and femininity influenced both patients and clinicians interpretations. Especially interesting was Scull's explanation of how the evolution of medicine and the politics of medical specialization affected treatment in the 19th century. In conclusion, Scull makes the argument that although the diagnosis has disappeared in the last century, patients have simply been reclassified under disorders with less negative connotations. However, though the basic idea is reasonable, he manages to posit it in rather insulting terms that suggest the same disdain for psychosomatic ailments as the legions of clinicians described throughout the book. Though an informative and easily accessible history, its brevity makes it more appropriate for the casual reader as opposed to an academic or someone well-versed in the history of medicine

[Natalie Moore · Rating 1 out of 5]

Interesting, until the last chapter when he attacks patients with fibromyalgia/chronic fatigue/ME claiming these labels are used to avoid being labelled as "classic hysterical malingerers." I am quite sure that it is doctors who come up with diagnostic labels, not the patients. Although according to him doctors have "no interest" in patients with these experiences - a quite frankly dangerous overgeneralisation. Scull also doesn't mention that the World Health Organisation classifies the above as a neurological disorder, but I suppose that would negate his entire chapter.

Not so much a "disturbing history" as an uninformed opinion.

[Onyx · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read for my EPQ.

Hmmmm Interesting. Was a bit superfluous in the language used, sometimes it seemed less necessarily ornate and enjoyable and more pretentious and showy-off. Not everything needs to be in jargon level 300. Also the fat jokes were uncomfortable and unprofessional. Also also this guys take on the fact that hysteria in the 1900s wasn’t that bad for women in their “gilded cages” but way worse for men who were forced to war seemed a little exaggerated as if it didn’t detail how women were forcibly getting their genitals burned off with white hot pokers and clitoris and labia hacked off with scissors to “cure hysteria”. Was okay. Could have been better tbh.

[Alice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this and you'll see why men should never have exclusive control of women's health or be able to legislate over something they know little about. Also the need for education for both men and women is horribly evident and should have nothing to do with Religion. Ignorance is a prime way to control the uneducated and maintain power over. Of especial interest is the naming of the same reaction in people as positive and benign for men and a bad possible sick response for women. That very human response being a organism.

[Timothy Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fascinating and thorough history of hysteria and other illness frameworks such as hypochondriasis and neurasthenia that explores how Europeans and Americans from the early modern period through today have attempted to explain the whole constellation of functional syndromes and personality traits that occur more often in women! This book was an excellent read for me as a psychiatrist, and I highly recommend it to my peers who also care for these patients as we attempt to relieve suffering while integrating feminist values into our practices!

[Nicole Opitz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hysteria is a pathological condition with a fascinating and tortuous medical and cultural history.

For there is a disorder that even those who insist on its reality concede is a chameleon-like disease that can mimic the sympthoms of any other, andbone thst somehow seems to mold itself to the culture in which it appears.

[Adanna Newby · Rating 3 out of 5]

As you can see - it took me a while to finish this book. I found it to be very informative overall, but it wasn’t quite what I was hoping it’d be. I was hoping it would focus more on the patients themselves rather than the academics and medical professionals that defined it. Regardless, I walked away knowing more than I did before, which is always a plus!

[Brena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extremely useful resource for the history of mental illness and the exhibition of it within the female body

[Hannah🌊 · Rating 1 out of 5]

Unreadable language and somehow manages to be boring despite interesting topic

[Myrick Crampton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice layperson’s book on the development of psychology using the frame of hysteria.

[Bh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure it told my anything as someone with a history of science and medicine postgrad that I didn’t already know. But maybe not meant for me.

[Emily Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

it was informative, but some things felt off, especially when his own opinion seemed through.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Andrew Scull's book details the history of the amorphous condition known as hysteria. Scull does not tell us what hysteria is or what causes it, instead he describes how hysteria has morphed from a condition originating in the uterus to one caused by neurological problems and psychological issues. I found it fascinating to see how hysteria vacillated between being an indication of good breeding/upper class and a mark of weakness/lower class.

The condition has always been most associated with women. Scull tells horrifying stories of how some doctors in the 1800s tried to cure the disease by essentially conducting female genital mutilation. Despite hysteria being a female-associated disease, there have been instances in time when men suffered similar problems that were labelled differently. Scull talks about the attitudes towards and treatments carried out on soldiers from WWI who returned from from the battlefield with shell shock, a condition with symptoms strikingly similar to hysteria. Shell shock was assumed by some doctors to be a way for soldiers to avoid going back to the battlefield. These doctors subjected traumatized soldiers to "treatments" (such as painful electric shocks) that aimed to break them of their shell shock. The final chapter presents how hysteria is not really acknowledged as a condition any more, but Scull speculates that it has morphed into other difficult to pin down conditions such as chronic fatigue syndrome.

I came away from this book thinking about how we classify disease. It's certainly not always based on tangible diagnoses and scientific evidence. Often classification is driven by social mores and drug companies. This is a very readable book and I'm afraid that my three star rating is a bit unfair because I didn't give the book quite the attention it deserved in the beginning.

[Sophie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm on page 122 of 240 of Hysteria: I'm abandoning this book. I can't believe a book on the history of hysteria is all about the men who defined and diagnosed it. It refuses to acknowledge what this meant for women and instead focuses on how different men defined hysteria. Also, if the writer uses the phrase 'hoi polloi' one more time, I'll have to rip this book to pieces. Shame, such an interesting topic, such an uninteresting book.

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

Andrew Scull explores this elite disease and the majority of women affected by it. There is an interesting chapter on traumatic neurosis and World War I as well, cases of male hysteria. This "hystery" is by no means complete, but he covers a lot of ground in his succinct text and offers up some additional suggestions for further reading.

[David Lamp · Rating 4 out of 5]

An insightful, wry, and thoughtful read about a condition that has many similarities to other conditions brought on by the changes of a rapidly evolving culture. An essential book for those consulting with professionals and their families.

[Sannie Hald · Rating 1 out of 5]

I am glad I wasn't a woman back in the day.. This books was not useful for my research and I found it boring and upsetting, yet interesting, though the latter does not uplifts the grade due to it being boring and upsetting.