Set at the end of the 19th century, the film depicts the management of “hysteria”, a then popular diagnosis of women displaying an array of symptoms including nervousness, insomnia, exhaustion, depression, cramps, and sexual frustration.
Medical practitioners of the day tried to manage hysteria by massaging the genital area, decently covered under a curtain, eliciting "paroxysmal convulsions", far from recognizing that they were inducing orgasms. In the movie, the young physician Dr. Mortimer Granville gets a job to help Dr. Dalrymple who runs a successful practice treating women. He seems to be good at massaging, getting a sizable following.
The job is strenuous and his hand musculature is unable to keep up with the task. Fortunately, his friend Lord Edmund St. John-Smythe has developed an electrical duster, and its vibrations give Dr. Granville the idea to modify the gadget. As such, the vibrator enters the stage as a medical device for the treatment of the condition. Parallel to this story Dr. Granville seems to develop a liking for the demure Victorian girl Emily Dalrymple, before falling in love with her older sister Charlotte, a premodern feminist firebrand.
"Hysteria", anyone seen it?
"Hysteria", anyone seen it?
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”