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An illness existed for a long time, since the time of the ancient Greeks, but can no longer be found. Only women were susceptible to this sickness and it eventually got a very unusual treatment. This illness was known as Hysteria. But why did only women suffer from it? What was the connection between Hysteria and vibrators? Why are women no longer diagnosed with this disease?

The answer lies in a part of the female anatomy, the uterus. The ancient Greeks had a word for the uterus, it was ‘hystera’.

Unfortunately for the uterus it has had a long, and unhappy history, some in the medical field thought that it would reach out into the rest of the body, causing sickness and disease. Others thought it made women crazy if over stimulated.

But what about Hysteria? What makes this illness so special? There were a lot of mental and physical disorders that were attributed to Hysteria, all of which eventually were found to be caused by real problems. Doctors loved Hysteria as it was pretty much a catch-all for all unknown illnesses.

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?

The possibly obvious answer to that question is sex, or rather, the deprivation thereof. Women were considered to be weak and rather susceptible to mental instability and many doctors believed that bringing a woman to “hysterical paroxysm” would treat Hysteria. What is “hysterical paroxysm”? In today’s terms we would refer to is as an orgasm.

But because of the fact that masturbation was an unclean and generally horrible act, women had to seek professional help to treat and prevent Hysteria. Doctors would usually treat women with a manual pelvic massage, thus inducing hysterical paroxysm.

But unfortunately for the doctors this process was often very long, even taking up to a few hours. Spending that much of a day for just one patient was definitely not profitable. But to help them, in the mid 1800’s some doctors were able to use a water hose to massage the pelvic region.

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.

Around the early 1900’s many people started getting electricity in their houses. This allowed women to treat themselves in the safety and privacy of their very own homes. Vibrators started to become much more common around the country. Sears printed an ad in one of their catalogues in 1918 where the touted their vibrator as being “Very useful and satisfactory for home service.”

And so vibrators became much more common place, women could use vibrators at home, which was not masturbating, since it was all in the name of keeping them healthy and sane which gave rise to wonderful toys such as the Layaspot.

But nowadays there is no such illness as Hysteria so women can’t say their vibrators are used to treat any disease. But luckily they don’t need to.

It seems logical to believe this history could have had a hand in women’s adult products being a lot more established than sex toys such as the Fleshlight or other types of male masturbators. But, then again, maybe not.