The Mother, the Nerves, and the Brain: Developments in Understandings of Hysteria in England, from Edward Jorden to Thomas Sydenham, 1603-1682

Female ‘hysteria’ has presented a fascinating medical mystery since its early and Ancient origins. It was first thought to be caused by the uterus moving around the body, but the aetiology of this disease has been ever shifting, and was interpreted in many different ways by many different people.

This thesis examines hysteria from 1603 to 1682, from Edward Jorden to Thomas Sydenham, and the ways in which the social, political, and medical contexts of the time shaped understandings of the disease. It begins with Edward Jorden and his use of hysteria as a defence for witchcraft in the case of Elizabeth Jackson. It then proceeds to examine the lives and work of three scholars who interacted with Oxford University—William Harvey, Nathaniel Highmore, and Robert Boyle—and the circle of Oxford Physiologists. As new techniques and philosophies emerged, so too did new ideas of hysteria, and this is demonstrated by these three men. From here this thesis examines midwifery manuals, and the discussions of hysteria within them, revealing the conflict between craft traditions and learned education in seventeenth-century England. Finally, this thesis ends with examining the work of Thomas Willis and Thomas Sydenham, and the ways in which they created a new foundational basis for what hysteria was amidst careers heavily influenced by the English Civil War.

The thesis examines the views on, and research into, hysteria in the published medical works of many physicians, experimenters, an apothecary, and female and male midwives. In so doing, it hopes to understand better both the development of an idea—that of hysteria—as well as the changing medical landscape in England during the seventeenth century. This history of hysteria presents the disease as inextricably connected to the context of its time.