
These haunting pictures show patients at a 19th century psychiatric hospital at a time when women were treated for 'hysteria' having shown 'symptoms' that included sexual desire, nervousness and irritability.

Images show women at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France during the 1870s, as medics tried to cure them and understand their disturbed state.

By the mid-nineteenth century, the medical unit was home to 5,000 women suffering from a number of conditions - most notably mental illness.

For centuries, female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis, with women forced to undergo treatment simply for having shown signs of shortness of breath, fluid retention or even just 'a tendency to cause trouble'.

Others were hospitalised for showing 'symptoms' including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, heaviness in the abdomen or irritability. Many would have been sent for treatment at such units by their own families.

These haunting pictures show patients at a 19th century psychiatric hospital at a time when women were treated for 'hysteria' having shown 'symptoms' that included sexual desire, nervousness and irritability

Images show women at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France during the 1870s, as medics tried to cure them and understand their disturbed state

By the mid-nineteenth century, the medical unit was home to 5,000 women suffering from a number of conditions - most notably mental illness

For centuries, female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis, with women forced to undergo treatment simply for having shown signs of shortness of breath, fluid retention or even just 'a tendency to cause trouble'

Neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot became head of Salpetriere in 1862 and, along with his student Paul Regnand, he captured portraits of scores of patients.

Charcot became a pioneering figure in the understanding of hysteria and his photos of female patients were later compiled in to a book of his findings, 'Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere' (1878).

For centuries, female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis, reserved exclusively for women. Up until the nineteenth century, it was widely believed to be connected to a womb which was out of place.

Those diagnosed were often forced to enter an asylum or to undergo a surgical hysterectomy.

For centuries, female hysteria was a common medical diagnosis, reserved exclusively for women. Up until the nineteenth century, it was widely believed to be connected to a womb which was out of place

Those diagnosed were often forced to enter an asylum or to undergo a surgical hysterectomy. This image shows a woman being treated with hypnotism

Treatment: A woman diagnosed with delirium melancholy (left) sits on the side of her bed. Another picture shows a patient being treated for 'hysteria' (right)

Diagnosis: Women were sometimes treated with hypnotism (left) after being sent to the hospital in Paris. Right: A patient diagnosed with 'hysteria' lies in her hospital bed in the 1870s

However during his time at Salpetriere, Charcot is credited with some degree of reform in treatment techniques.

Under Charcot's guidance, Salpetriere's female patients were treated through observation for the first time.

Charcot talked to them, checked their reflexes, asked them to perform tasks and everything would be noted, sketched or photographed.

He initially believed that hysteria was a neurological disorder for which patients were pre-disposed by hereditary features of the nervous system.

This woman was photographed as she recovered from what was described as an 'attack' at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France, in 1876

Neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot (right) became head of Salpetriere in 1862 and, along with his student Paul Regnand, he captured portraits of scores patients. Left: A young woman diagnosed with hysteria during the 1870s

Charcot became a pioneering figure in the understanding of hysteria and his photos of female patients were later compiled in to a book of his findings, 'Iconographie photographique de la Salpetriere'. Pictured: A patient hallucinates (left) in her hospital bed while another woman enters what was described as the 'ecstatic phase' of a seizure

The haunting images show women receiving treatment at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris, France, during the 1870s

Charcot argued vehemently against the widespread medical prejudice that hysteria was rarely found in men. He also controversially used hypnotism to observe and even treat patients. Pictured: Two women endure seizures at the hospital

But by the end of his life in the 1890s, he had concluded that hysteria was a psychological disease which could be caused by trauma.

Charcot argued vehemently against the widespread medical prejudice that hysteria was rarely found in men. He also controversially used hypnotism to observe and even treat patients.

Marie 'Blanche' Wittmann - known as the Queen of Hysterics - was Charcot's most famous hysteria patient at Salpetriere. He would hypnotise her at his weekly lectures so she would demonstrate her supposed illness.

How 'hysteria' was a routine diagnosis for centuries The term hysteria itself stems from the Greek word hysterika, meaning Uterus. Female hysteria was once a common medical diagnosis, reserved exclusively for women, that is no longer recognised by medical authorities. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for hundreds of years. Women suspected to have had it exhibited a wide array of symptoms, including sexual desire, insomnia or even a 'tendency to cause trouble'. In some extreme cases, woman were forced to enter asylums or undergo a surgical hysterectomy. In ancient Greece, hysteria was described in the gynecological treatises of the Hippocratic Corpus, which dates back to the 5th and 4th centuries BC. Plato's dialogue Timaeus compares a woman's uterus to a living creature that wanders throughout a woman's body, 'blocking passages, obstructing breathing, and causing disease'. The ancient Greeks used the term Wandering Womb - the belief that a displaced uterus was the cause of many medical pathologies in women. Advertisement

These two women were among the many patients diagnosed with 'hysteria' at the Salpetriere Hospital in Paris in the 1870s

Neurologist Jean-Marie Charcot captured numerous images of his patients before, during and after suffering seizures

Pictures show two female patients at the pioneering hospital in Paris in the 1870s. They had been admitted having shown symptoms of 'hysteria'



