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There was once an ailment, a wide-spread disorder until the early 1900's, called Hysteria. But what was it? Where did it come from? Why were women the only ones to suffer from it? And what is the connection between this strange illness and vibrators? The first step in understanding Hysteria is to understand where the word came from. Hysteria is derived from an ancient Greek word, 'hystera', which means uterus. So the uterus is the center of this disease, its origins if you will. But why the uterus? The uterus has a long and unhappy history of being thought of as evil, as being the area of the woman's body that causes sickness, mental instability and craziness. Since the uterus had such a bad reputation it was easy for doctors to blame many unknown illnesses on it, and since Hysteria was caused by the uterus overwhelming the woman it belonged to and making her crazy, it was simple enough to call everything not understood Hysteria. During the mid to late 1800's, a time when Hysteria was at its peak, many doctors noted a trend in women who suffered from this illness. Many of those women turned out to be virgins, nuns, widows and even some housewives. But what is it that connects all these women? No sex, and no sex led to a severe shortage of "hysterical paroxysm", what we now know as an orgasm. Since masturbation was a very terrible thing to do there were doctors who would help women who suffered from Hysteria. In order to do this they would provide women with pelvic massages, manually inducing hysterical paroxysm. The problem here was that this process could sometimes take hours to complete, thus preventing doctors from tending to very many patients, causing a loss of income. In the mid to late 1800's some doctors used water massaging to get the desired results, they did this through the use of hoses. But thankfully in 1873 a new tool was created and first used in an asylum in France to treat Hysteria. This tool was called a electromechanical vibrator. This wondrous tool allowed doctors to help their patients in a matter of minutes, not hours. As technology advanced more and more people got electricity in their houses, allowing women to treat themselves in the comfort of their own home. Sears even advertised their vibrators in their 1918 catalogue where they said their vibrators were ”Very useful and satisfactory for home service.” Thus started the great vibrator movement, allowing women a bit of vibrator fun at home, all in the name of keeping them sane. Unfortunately women can't use that excuse anymore as Hysteria is not a recognized illness, but fortunately they don't have to.
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Written by Eric Schmidt, a writer that works for The Sex Toy Life.com, an online store that sells quality sex toys. Eric loves to write about sex toys, sexuality and health.
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