According to Luthra & Wessely (2004), Hysteria was thought to be unique only to women for some time. Labeling women as having Hysteria served the social contracting purpose as that similar to the perception that was labeled on women who had practiced witchcraft. Moreover, it helped to tame non-conforming women or women thought to have emotional outbursts. Such women were thought to have conduct that was out of the ordinary and hence, diagnosis of the disease was considered to serve to tame them.
Cahalan, (2013) compiles a novel titled “Brain on Fire” in which she narrates an issue she faced with anti-NMDA receptor encephalitis. Additionally, she speaks about the process by which she ended up diagnosed with the condition of encephalitis. She wakes up to find herself in a hospital lacking memory about the events that occurred the previous month. In the course of her time in the hospital, she would have delusions and violent episodes. Through her suffering and through the experience of the author, the reader learns the effects of the condition which had only been discovered three years before her diagnosis.
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Overall, the lecture provides a basis upon which medicine was established, especially with regards to women's bodies and the reluctance to properly study and diagnose them. For instance, women were thought to have semen that turned venomous whenever they stayed for long periods without releasing it, which is based on falsehood. I find this presentation eye-opening because it reveals the struggle for containment between men and women. I believe that the reluctance to study and understand women made it easier for men to generalize their condition and lump them together as Hysteria and neurasthenia. Therefore, the two terms were more of a social-cultural diagnosis than they were a scientifically proven idea.
References
Cahalan, S. (2013). Brain on Fire. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Luthra, A., & Wessely, S. (2004). Unloading the trunk: neurasthenia, CFS and race. Social Science & Medicine, 58 (11), 2363-2369. doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2003.08.031
