← All of Himeka's Erotic Trivia
The vibrator's "hysteria cure" origin story? Zero evidence
"The vibrator was invented by doctors to cure hysteria." It's a famous story, but when you check, the evidence just isn't there. The real history is a device for easing pain, and a "health appliance."
MaiHimeka-san! Vibrators were invented by old-timey doctors to cure "hysteria," right!? They even made a movie about it! I totally know this!
Himeka...Sigh. That happens to be the most famous story with no evidence behind it. It comes from a 1999 history book, The Technology of Orgasm. The claim is that Victorian doctors treated hysteria by bringing female patients to orgasm. It got turned into a stage play, and a 2011 British film, Hysteria.
HimekaBut in 2018, the historians Hallie Lieberman and Eric Schatzberg went through the sources that book cited, one by one. The result? Not a single piece of evidence that doctors ever used electric vibrators to bring female patients to orgasm as a treatment.
MaiWhaaat!? Then why did the inventor, Dr. Grand Piano, even make it!?
HimekaGranville! Nobody's tickling the ivories here! ...Joseph Mortimer Granville, a 19th-century English doctor. What he made was a vibrating device called the "percuteur," meant to ease muscle pain. In his 1883 book he even wrote that he had never yet used it on a female patient.
MaiAww, how boring! So vibrators didn't show up in people's homes until way, way later, huh!
HimekaActually, surprisingly early. The American company Hamilton Beach made the "New Life" vibrator, stamped with a patent date of June 24, 1902, and built around 1903. One of them now sits in the Smithsonian's collection.
HimekaIt came in a leatherette case, with swappable attachments like hard rubber discs and a ball. The catalog price was $25 in 1915 and $28.50 in 1929. Back then vibrators were advertised in newspapers and magazines as "health devices" for all sorts of ailments, and Hamilton Beach even put out a booklet called Health and How to Get It.
MaiA health device! Then starting tomorrow, I'm doing my morning aerobics with a vibrator! Himeka-san, join me!
HimekaYou are NOT doing aerobics with it!! And don't invite me!! ...Besides, the American Medical Association back then was pretty critical of these vibrating "treatments." In other words, don't take the ads at their word.
HimekaHmph. "Doctors invented it to cure hysteria" may just be a story too juicy for anyone to bother checking. And you, stop believing whatever you saw in a movie.
Himeka's summary
- The story that "Victorian doctors used vibrators to bring female patients to orgasm as a hysteria treatment" spread from the 1999 book The Technology of Orgasm. In 2018, Lieberman and Schatzberg checked the book's sources and found no evidence for it.
- Granville, the 19th-century English doctor who made the vibrating "percuteur," worked on easing pain, and wrote in his 1883 book that he had never yet used it on a female patient.
- Hamilton Beach's "New Life" vibrator carries a 1902 patent and dates from around 1903. It cost $25 in 1915 and $28.50 in 1929. Vibrators of the time were advertised as health devices, and the American Medical Association was critical of those treatments.
Sources
- A Failure of Academic Quality Control: The Technology of Orgasm (Lieberman & Schatzberg, Journal of Positive Sexuality, 2018)
- Of Sound Minds and Tuning Forks: Neuroscience's Vibratory Histories (The MIT Press Reader)
- Hamilton Beach type C "New Life" electric vibrator (Smithsonian National Museum of American History)
General trivia only. For anything that needs a medical call, talk to a doctor. All characters are adults.
Translated from the Japanese original. Sources are unchanged.