Mysterious 2,000-year-old scroll reveals crazy Roman medical theory that women became HYSTERICAL when they didn’t have sex
The meaning behind the ancient papyrus script was finally cracked by researchers in Switzerland after decades were spent trying to crack the text
A MYSTERIOUS 2,000-year-old scroll has been deciphered by researchers to reveal bizarre ancient Roman beliefs that women became hysterical without sex.
The crumbling papyrus revealed medical writings about the now debunked condition after baffling scientists for centuries.
It had previously belonged to a collection of old works in the possession of a professor who resided at the University of Basel during the 16th Century.
Due to mirror writing in Ancient Greek adorning both sides of the papyrus, it bewildered experts and scholars for centuries.
However, using modern ultraviolet and infrared light technology, the Basel Digital Humanities Lab discovered that the papyrus was not a single sheet, but instead several glued together.
With the help of a specialist papyrus restorer, they were separated which finally allowed them to be read for the first time - revealing it to be a medical document.
Sabine Huebner, a professor of ancient history at the University of Basel, proclaimed the progress as "a sensational discovery".
She explained that "the majority of papyri are documents such as letters, documents and receipts. ‘P. Basel 1A’ is a literary text and is more valuable".
She added: "We can now say that it’s a medical text that describes the phenomenon of ‘hysterical apnea’, (therefore) we assume that it is either a text from the Roman physician Galen or an unknown commentary of work”.
Hysterical apnea, better known today as hysteria suffocation, had been previously mentioned by Galen in other texts.
His extraordinary claim theorised that women could suffer hysterical apnea if they stopped having sexual intercourse, an affliction clearly not recognised by modern doctors.
Despite this, Galen is remembered as one of greatest scholars of antiquity, particularly in modern medicine.
WHAT WAS HYSTERICAL SUFFOCATION?
The scroll discusses what was known in Ancient Greece and Rome as Hysterical Suffocation, a condition said to affect women with an absence of sex.
Galen’s belief was very similar to that of Hippocrates, “The Father of Medicine”, who was the first to coin the term "hysteria".
Hippocrates' unusual theory believed that hysteria came from a female uterus that was deprived of moisture, which should have been received through intercourse.
He called this condition the "wandering womb", which if unhappy as a result of this would float around the upper abdomen triggering “stiff breathing and sharp pains in the heart”, according to the text of his ‘Diseases of Women”.
Galen advanced this theory further. Whilst he disagreed that the womb wandered, he believed that the hysteria was caused by the retention of an apparent "female seed", which would turn poisonous if not released through regular intercourse.
His recommendation to curing this was the hastening of marriage, with the implication that regular sex would cure women of hysteria.
This theory has of course been debunked by modern medicine. It was not until Sigmund Freud in the 19th Century determined that "hysteria" was not exclusive to women but could also affect men, and was determined by upbringing, education and social interaction.
In time, the focus on hysteria being a condition determined by sexual intercourse disintegrated within Western society. It was not until 1980 that "hysteria" was no longer diagnosed as a mental disorder.
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