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When Opium Was a Cure-All Remedy, and Other Unusual Historic Medical Cures

Khalid Elhassan April 10, 2025 16 min

Remedy - Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague — Flagellants thought that flogging themselves would ward off the plague. Pits Perilous

9. The Victorian Epidemic of “Female Hysteria”

victorian women were believed to be prone to female hysteria. historic uk 1024x527 — Victorian women were believed to be prone to “female hysteria”. Historic UK

In the Victorian era, people – particularly men – knew very little about female sexuality. In the second half of the nineteenth century, women who exhibited a variety of symptoms such as anxiety, depression, fatigue, or loss of sexual appetite were diagnosed with “female hysteria”. The remedy prescribed by doctors was a pelvic massage to bring about a “female paroxysm”. That was what Victorians called a woman’s climax. A doctor would insert his fingers inside a patient’s vagina, and manually massage her vulva and clitoral region until she climaxed. That was supposed to cure whatever was ailing her.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.