What is hysteria, and why were so many women diagnosed with it? - Mark S. Micale
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TEDEd Animation
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Do you ever feel tired? Overwhelmed? Depressed? Do you have headaches, dizziness, cramps, difficulty breathing? From 300 BCE to the 1900s, if you answered yes to any of these questions and you had a uterus, a doctor would likely diagnose you with hysteria. So, where did this medical diagnosis come from? And why did it persist for so long? Mark S. Micale traces the history of the catch-all term.
Why do you think doctors in WWI preferred the name shell shock to hysteria? Compared to the hysterical female patients of earlier times, how did the causes of shell shock differ?
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Meet The Creators
- Educator Mark S. Micale
- Director Laura Jayne Hodkin
- Narrator Bethany Cutmore-Scott
- Music Phil Brookes
- Sound Designer Phil Brookes
- Vocal Effects Artist Annaliese Broughton
- Director of Production Gerta Xhelo
- Produced by Sazia Afrin
- Editorial Director Alex Rosenthal
- Editorial Producer Shannon Odell
- Script Editor Stephanie Honchell Smith
- Fact-Checker Charles Wallace
