Hysterical Women.

My last post, Have you got the Painters in?,  was so popular I have been urged to provide more information from my 1907 book, The Household Physician.

Well, truth be told, a couple of you have asked about menopause and trapped wind.

I thought I’d solved the latter by reading Dr McGregor Robertson’s advice on colic (laudanum and a warm water enema) but in fact I have since discovered he did have advice on trapped wind itself: ginger or peppermint is advisable (same as today’s advice from my own GP).

Menopause? “The Change of Life”. Here’s what the good doctor has to say:

“At this time the woman is in an unstable condition of health, and liable to many minor ailments, and also to some more serious. She is liable to headaches, flushings of the face, and disturbances of the digestive and nervous systems.”

That’s it! Considering how much detail he writes about every other subject, this important phase in a woman’s cycle is quickly passed over. However he is far more concerned about “Nervous Diseases of Women” in general, in particular, hysteria.

“Hysteria – is a puzzle and a plague to nearly every physician….very common in women between the ages of fifteen and thirty…….
Symptoms such as loss of appetite, obstinate vomiting, excessive development of gas in the bowels, fainting and fits of various kinds……..They are nervous and excitable, prone to laugh or cry at trifles, with little control over their emotions, irritable, querulous, and quarrelsome……
Treatment is firm and judicious control. Hysterical convulsions can usually be cut short by dashing quantities of cold water about the person’s face”

To be honest if I were faced with a farting, fainting, fractious woman, I’d be tempted to do the same

Finally, a caption please, for the photo below.