On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females

On the Curability of Certain Forms of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria in Females

Medical Treatment of Insanity, Epilepsy, Catalepsy, and Hysteria

Isaac Baker Brown's journal about insanity, epilepsy, catalepsy, and hysteria gives a clear depiction of how people perceived women who exhibited resistance to domestic living in the Victorian Era. Included in this item is the journal's title page, the Introduction, and some passages from the first chapter, in which Dr. Baker promotes the removal of the clitoris when a woman desires "an escape from home," wanting to become "a nurse in hospitals," or showing "distaste for marital intercourse." These perfectly rational thoughts are depicted as signs of insanity, which is reminiscent of the girl's treatment in Margaret Oliphant's "The Library Window." Dr. Baker's response to the cries of women for help and freedom from the sphere of domesticity is to remove what brings them pleasure, forcing them to live out the rest of their lives pleasing their husband, while physically incapable of receiving anything in return. Published in 1866, this journal sets the tone for the way independent or sexual women are seen as hysterical. It is also important to note that hysteria and insanity are placed in the same group as epilepsy and other physical ailments. We now know that mental illness is its own category and requires its own forms of treatment, and it cannot be cured by extracting or operating on the human body. This ignorance led to the traumatization of women throughout the Victorian Era, as we see in "The Library Window." The girl becomes a shell of a person by the end of the story because she has been told that her curiosity is insanity, and rather than being treated with understanding and listening, she is deemed hysterical and is viewed as a spectacle.

Isaac Brown Baker

Archive.org

London: Robert Hardwicke

1866

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Excerpts from Medical Journal