What is "female hysteria"

n. A now unrecognized medical diagnosis made exclusively in women with symptoms including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention and heaviness in the abdomen.

Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, reserved exclusively for women, which is today no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria of both genders was widely discussed in the medical literature of the nineteenth century. Women considered to have it exhibited a wide array of symptoms, including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and a "tendency to cause trouble."

In extreme cases, the woman might be forced to enter an insane asylum or to undergo surgical hysterectomy. Female hysteria was often attributed to sexual frustration, with females being unable to reduce stress via vaginal intercourse; this led to physicians recommending private clitoral stimulation at home. Women unable to do so on their own received relief via a genital massage from a physician, although this caused concern in the medical community, who would go on to invent the vibrator to do the massage for them. The vibrator later became a commercial product, so women could relieve sexual frustration at home. By the 20th century, female hysteria was a thing of the past, as vibrators became widespread and non-sexual frustration symptoms were attributed to other problems.