hysteria and wandering wombs

To clarify: I had neither hysteria nor a wandering womb.  

hustera – Greek, womb

hysteria – from the Greek for womb

hysterectomy – removal of the womb

Female hysteria was a once-common medical diagnosis, made exclusively in women, which is today no longer recognized by medical authorities as a medical disorder. Its diagnosis and treatment were routine for many hundreds of years in Western Europe. Hysteria was widely discussed in the medical literature of the 19th century. Women considered to be suffering from it exhibited a wide array of symptoms, including faintness, nervousness, sexual desire, insomnia, fluid retention, heaviness in the abdomen, muscle spasm, shortness of breath, irritability, loss of appetite for food or sex, and “a tendency to cause trouble”.^[1] In extreme cases, the woman would be forced into the asylum and undergo surgical hysterectomy. (wikipedia)

Wombs go randomly wandering.  The ancient Greek physician Hippocrates believed a displaced uterus, or a wandering womb, was to blame for a range of medical problems that plagued women, from excessive emotion to knee problems. The symptoms of the disease, known as hysteria, varied depending on where in the body the uterus wandered. This is how Aretaeus of Cappadocia later described the condition:

On the whole, the womb is like an animal within an animal. When, therefore, it is suddenly carried upwards, and remains above for a considerable time, and violently compresses the intestines, the woman experiences a choking, after the form of epilepsy, but without convulsions. For the liver, diaphragm, lungs and heart are quickly squeezed within a narrow space; and therefore loss of breathing and of speech seems to be present.