Molly Forrest

Classics 114, Clara Hardy

Journal Paper, Final Draft

February 19, 2002

Menstruation in Virgins: Absolute Hysterics

Modern society has grown to believe that puberty in young girls, watching as they develop in to women is something beautiful. Though a confusing time, it is also important and special, and even menstruation is seen as a unique rite of passage. This wasn’t always true. In ancient Greece, it simply signaled the time when a girl could physically begin to reproduce, which also meant marriage and management of her own household. Traditionally, the justification for puberty and menstruation came spiritually, the gods deciding that this was the time for such a transition. Beginning in the 4^th century B.C., a small group, including Hippocrates, began to form theories that all behavior, including those associated with menstruation, could be explained physiologically—any erratic activity or withdrawn moods was simply called “hysteria.” What the Hippocratics failed to appreciate, though, was the cultural significance of the period through which these girls were going, and the great stress that it created for them. The hysteria that occurred during puberty was due just as much to cultural and psychological factors as physiological factors.

According to Hippocrates, menstruation began the same in all women--the blood collected in the womb in order to flow out. When a girl was no longer a virgin, and her “egress” opened, then she could menstruate safely with a clear pathway from the womb. If the girl’s virginity was still intact, as was common at the time of their first periods, and the egress was not open, then the blood could not flow as freely and instead gathered around the heart and lungs. When “these [were] filled with blood, the heart [became] sluggish, and then, because of the sluggishness, numb, and then, because of the numbness, insanity [took] hold of the woman” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). Hippocrates asserted that the veins were slanted in the area around the heart and lungs, and so the blood did not quickly flow back down to the womb. It was a place “suited for madness” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349), and hysteria.

Hysteria set in first with shivering, cold sweats referred to as fevers. The girls went crazy from the fevers and “[became] murderous…and afraid” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). The blood around the heart alone caused them to try to choke themselves and, “their will, distraught and anguished because of the bad condition of the blood, [forced] evil on itself” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). Many would experience visions, causing them to say shocking things and to be suicidal. Those that did not experience visions had a desire “which [compelled them] to love death as if it were a form of good” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). Sexual intercourse, by opening the egress, relieved the symptoms of this hysteria, and pregnancy cured them for life. As women were supposedly the less courageous and weaker sex, those that failed to cohabit with a man eventually succumbed to the visions, choking themselves to death (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349).

Looking at the time of puberty in ancient Greece in a more cultural way, this was indeed a stretch of upheaval and transition. When a young girl first begins menstruating, she is physically able and ready to give birth and raise children, regardless of her age. During the time of Hippocrates, this fact was taken very seriously—as these girls were old enough to give birth, they were old enough to make the move from their father’s to their husband’s household. They were young—barely past the ages of fourteen and fifteen—but already expected to nurture own children and run their own household. This could explain why in “…some cases the girl [said] dreadful things: [the visions ordered] her to jump up and throw herself into wells and drown, as if this were good for her and served useful purpose” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). If suicide was common for girls at this transitional age, a possible explanation is the cultural norms and expectations created so much anxiety that they saw no other solution. The girls were naive, scared, thus far exposed to very little outside of their father’s home, but already required to take on the responsibility of marriage and children.

There is evidence suggesting that the girls themselves did not believe their hysteria was due to physiological factors. Before Hippocrates and others formed their theories on the physical body, the only answers were found spiritually. Young women performed the traditional rituals in order to cure, and perhaps prevent, what was making them feel this way, and gave little thought to any possible physiological aspects. Artemis was the Greek goddess that was turned to during times of transition, such as menstruation, development, and marriage. Women used to “…give to Artemis various offerings, especially the most valuable of women’s robes, following the orders of oracles” (Hippocrates, Diotima, 349). But doctors and philosophers like Hippocrates believed that these women were deceived. These men were radical in their thinking, allowing for the fact that what happens to a woman’s body may not be the work of Zeus, but simply something wrong with the heart, lungs or womb. However, they went so far as to claim that nothing about these women could be attributed to newly found cultural expectations in marriage and child-bearing.

It is interesting to note that at least some doctors considered there to be psychological foundations to hysteria, and not just physiological. Galen, making his examinations nearly 200 years after Hippocrates, found a young patient with several behavioral signs of hysteria; she was suffering from insomnia, acting withdrawn, and unwilling to communicate. What he did not find was a fever—usually the telltale physical sign of hysteria. After several days of observation, Galen finally concluded, “…that the woman was suffering from some mental uneasiness” (Galen, Diotima, 352). The young girl was in love. We now see this aloof and withdrawn attitude as typical of girls in the middle of puberty suddenly finding themselves in love, but Galen was revolutionary in claiming that this insanity was perhaps due to external factors and not blood collecting around the heart and lungs, recognizing that “…the body tends to be affected by mental conditions” (Galen, Diotima, 352).

It’s almost fascinating to see how the diagnoses of Hippocrates and Galen have evolved into our own interpretation of puberty and menstruation—hormones. It is a melding between the two ancient theories. Hippocrates acknowledged that something must be happening internally for these girls to act in such a ridiculous manner, while Galen understood that external, even cultural, factors could have an equal impact.

Modern society now accepts that puberty is physiological, psychological, and cultural. The three cannot be separated, for on their own they sound ludicrous as sole explanations for this change and “insanity” in both females and males. The public knowledge that we all have now was not so true in Greece 2500 years ago. Those that aligned with Hippocrates believed in the physical body, the women themselves behaved culturally and spiritually, and Galen put himself out on a limb to adhere to psychological beliefs--beliefs that would not be rediscovered again until the twentieth century (Galen, Diotima, 352). Perhaps we should be thankful that the modern world does not adhere to just one discipline in order to explain the phenomena occurring in our own bodies—girls experiencing puberty are not hysterical, the gods are not punishing them, and they are not merely encountering “mental uneasiness.” They are menstruating, and growing, and developing—events that have become something beautiful.