19 | September | 2012 | I choose how I will spend the rest of my life

Daily Archives: September 19, 2012

Hysteria

Posted on September 19, 2012 | 14 comments

Note – This is Blog No 501. Worthy of applause? Now for tonight’s blog.

Tonight we went to the movies. Yes again. The choice of movies at our local bijoux theatre was good – The Wish, Your Sister’s Sister, On The Road and more, and we chose Hysteria.

It is described as a romp through London in the late 1800s when Hysteria was a catch-all phrase for many women’s problems. Click here to see the trailer.

I thought it was all terribly ‘tongue in cheek’ until I looked up our good friends at Wikipedia. Here we learn “hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by modern medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe.”

It appears that there really was a Dr (Joseph) Mortimer Granville who invented the electro-mechanical vibrator as a means to achieve this ‘paroxysm” in his female patients without his (the doctor) having to stand for up to an hour administering the ‘pelvic massage’. There had been an earlier invention by an American physician, a steam-powered vibrator called ‘The Manipulator’ . Granville’s invention was rapidly followed by other contraptions none of which could be manipulated away from the doctor’s surgery.

A 1918 Sears, Roebuck and Co. ad with several models of vibrators. via Wikipedia

Then along came electricity giving the ability to use vibrators in one’s own home, then of course, came all sorts of battery operated toys including vibrators. And if we are to believe all we are told millions of vibrators reside in homes around the world. But no, I won’t ask if you have one.