They were healed and recovered their wits. Melampus cured these women with hellebore and then urged them to join carnally with young and strong men. The Argonaut Melampus, a physician, is considered its founder: he placated the revolt of Argo’s virgins who refused to honor the phallus and fled to the mountains, their behavior being taken for madness. Īccording to Greek mythology, the experience of hysteria was at the base of the birth of psychiatry. If the uterus had moved upwards, this could be done by placing malodorous and acrid substances near the woman’s mouth and nostrils, while scented ones were placed near her vagina on the contrary, if the uterus had lowered, the document recommends placing the acrid substances near her vagina and the perfumed ones near her mouth and nostrils. We also find indications of the therapeutic measures to be taken depending on the position of the uterus, which must be forced to return to its natural position.
![stop fires in grand ages rome stop fires in grand ages rome](https://images.gog-statics.com/b42d4bd0fa7910bdd9379dbcad323b5e8c6557d877beb70923ad625f6597cc32_product_card_v2_mobile_slider_639.jpg)
In the Eber Papyrus (1600 BC) the oldest medical document containing references to depressive syndromes, traditional symptoms of hysteria were described as tonic- clonic seizures and the sense of suffocation and imminent death (Freud’s globus istericus). The first description referring to the ancient Egyptians dates to 1900 BC ( Kahun Papyrus) and identifies the cause of hysterical disorders in spontaneous uterus movement within the female body. The first mental disorder attributable to women, and for which we find an accurate description since the second millennium BC, is undoubtedly hysteria. 20 th century’s studies have also drawn on the importance of transcultural psychiatry, in order to understand the role of environmental factors in the emotive evolution and behavioral phenomenology and in modifying the psychopathology, producing the hypotheses of a modification to hysteria from the increase of mood disorders. ġ9-20 th centuries’ studies gradually demonstrate that hysteria is not an exclusively female disease allowing a stricter scientific view to finally prevail. Thus mental disorder, especially in women, so often misunderstood and misinterpreted, generates scientific and / or moral bias, defined as a pseudo-scientific prejudice. We intend to historically identify the two dominant approaches towards mental disorders, the “magic-demonological” and “scientific” views in relation to women: not only is a woman vulnerable to mental disorders, she is weak and easily influenced (by the “supernatural” or by organic degeneration), and she is somehow “guilty” (of sinning or not procreating). The evolution of these diseases seems to be a factor linked with social “westernization”, and examining under what conditions the symptoms first became common in different societies became a priority for recent studies over risk factor. The concept of hysterical neurosis is deleted with the 1980 DSM-III. During the 20 th century several studies postulated the decline of hysteria amongst occidental patients (both women and men) and the escalating of this disorder in non-Western countries. However, even at the end of 19 th century, scientific innovation had still not reached some places, where the only known therapies were those proposed by Galen.
![stop fires in grand ages rome stop fires in grand ages rome](https://images.gog-statics.com/a2261549e06e77e1173ce10a6e9b3154949d2afc9f50b813a08bb6f80bac4a46_product_card_v2_mobile_slider_639.jpg)
It was cured with herbs, sex or sexual abstinence, punished and purified with fire for its association with sorcery and finally, clinically studied as a disease and treated with innovative therapies. Over 4000 years of history, this disease was considered from two perspectives: scientific and demonological. Hysteria is undoubtedly the first mental disorder attributable to women, accurately described in the second millennium BC, and until Freud considered an exclusively female disease.