One of my favorite short stories is The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman. It was first published in 1892. In the haunting narrative, Gilman critiques common medical practices for women affected by  things such as “hysteria” and “neurasthenia” after childbirth. My sources for the information are scattered throughout this post as links.

The common treatment of the time was the “rest cure.” It left the woman tethered to a bed with no means to express herself, writing or otherwise.. This supposedly promoted healthy blood flow, and removal from too much stimulation. It’s now widely recognized as a load of junk, a part of a largely misogynistic tradition that controlled women’s bodies. Nevertheless, Doctor Silas Weir Mitchell and his bed rest cure has a solidified place in literature, women’s health, and history.

Based on the story, and my slight interest in the subject matter, I chose to look at the terms “apothecary,” “hysteria,” and “neurasthenia” on the Oxford English Dictionary.

So, “apothecary” is where I’ll begin. I chose that term in particular because it connects, at least in my mind, to quack medicine. Kind of unsure as to how I feel about it now given the dictionary definition. Through the graph, the term noticeably intersects with hysteria in 1872. That places it at the correct time period for things such as the rest cure, or women’s nervous disorders. Although it drops at 1900, most likely due to its outdated connotation and new words like druggist or pharmacist, it is the only term that had any influence before the 1800s. According to the OED, the term finds its roots in either a druggist, store of drugs, or treatment by drugs. It first appears in 1366. Most notable to me was the emphasis on its importance in Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet. Again, dweeb life.

Lydia E. Pinkham was a famous Victorian medical businesswoman. I have an old Lydia Pinkham medical bottle at home, and it always reminds me of Ona’s sad ending in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. Many of her concoctions included herbal supplements, and surprise, alcohol. Her famed vegetable compound was said to cure “female problems.” Her supplements may or may not have worked, but her emphasis on shrewd business certainly did. Pinkham remains as a largely recognized advertising face for women’s health in the late 1800s and early 1900s.

I’ll link together “Hysteria” and “neurasthenia” based on the running theme. Both terms experienced spikes in the 1880s on the graph. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, hysteria etymology comes from modern medical Latin. A small sentence under the nervous system disease definition states that: “Women being much more liable than men to this disorder, it was originally thought to be due to a disturbance of the uterus and its functions.” Quite interesting given the whole Yellow Wallpaper backdrop. On the OED, the first use dates back to 1801, as an “Account of Diseases in an Eastern District of London… Chronic Diseases… Hysteria.” Unlike its counterpart, neurasthenia comes much later. The graph shows little to no evidence of the word until the 1870s, and the OED suggests an earlier medical mention in 1829. This disorder was marked by fatigue, nervousness, sensory disturbance, and other neurological concerns caused by nerve weakness or exhaustion. In 1965, it’s noticeably connected to bored housewives.  Now, it’s widely considered archaic.

As an overview to this assignment… I liked watching the trends in the Google Ngram, especially given the word etymology and studies on women’s health in literature. Likewise, it’s interesting to look at and interpret how our views are shaped by the literature we consume. Changes in theory, medicine, and writing are all informing my blog post here, which is pretty interesting itself.