Aretæus surpasses every other ancient author in his description of this affection. He sets out with pronouncing the uterus to be, as it were, an animal within an animal, wandering upwards, downwards, and to either side, being attracted by fragrant things and flying from fetid. When, therefore, it ascends upwards, it occasions compression of the liver, diaphragm, lungs, or heart, and sympathetically with the last, also of the carotids. It is accompanied with heaviness of the head and loss of sensibility. Nearly allied to it, but yet a different affection, is a complaint which attacks men, having therefore no connexion with the uterus, and not being relieved by fetid things. He says that, when the attack proves fatal, the pulse sinks and becomes irregular and intermittent, there is a strong sense of suffocation, loss of speech, loss of sensibility, respiration unequal or not even perceptible, sudden and unexpected death. For some time after the countenance does not put on the appearance of death, but is redder than natural, and the eyes project. He also gives a good account of the treatment, which, however, cannot be said to differ in any material respect from that of Galen and Celsus, as explained above. The same may be said of Oribasius, Nonnus, and Octavius.
Aëtius is very minute in his description. He remarks that after respiration by the mouth is stopped, the arteries may continue to beat, as is the case with reptiles in winter. The disease, he says, is occasioned by a flatulent refrigeration, and not by inflammation, as Soranus has said.
Actuarius accounts for the complaint and describes it in the same terms as the preceding writers. As it occurs principally with virgins and widows, he prescribes for them the Hudibrastic mode of wooing widows!
Eros gives the same account of the symptoms and treatment as the others.
Moschion, however, disapproves entirely of the common practice of applying fetid things to the nose, ligatures to the extremities, and fragrant pessaries to the uterus. On the contrary, he recommends warm fomentations, injections of warm water thrown into the uterus, rubbing the body with warm hands, and when the disease gets into the chronic state, giving alteratives (metasyncritica) and hellebore.
According to Leo, men who have been long restricted from venery are subject to the hysterical convulsion.
See, in Alexander Aphrodisiensis, an ingenious explanation why fetid substances applied to the nose and fragrant ones to the parts below were supposed to prove beneficial in such cases. It is too long for our purpose.
The account which Plato gives of the nature of the uterus and the phenomena of hysterics ought perhaps not to be taken in too literal a sense, considering that philosopher’s well-known propensity to mystification. He says, that part in women which is called the womb being an animal desirous of generation, if it become unfruitful for a long time, turns indignant, and, wandering all over the body, stops the passages of the spirits and the respiration, and occasions the most extreme anxiety and all sorts of diseases. (Timæus.)
The Arabians describe and treat the complaint exactly like our author. Serapion says that the uterus is delighted with fragrant things, and flies from fetid, not because it is an animal but from a natural property. He recommends ligatures to the extremities, purging with hiera picra, bleeding if not contra-indicated, the application of fetid things to the nose, and of fragrant things to the uterus, and so forth. Avicenna states that the affection arises from the menstrual discharge or semen being retained in the uterus. Haly Abbas adopts this explanation. He says the uterus affects the brain and heart sympathetically, giving rise to apoplexy, epilepsy, and other serious complaints. Young women, especially widows, are most liable to it. He says it is often periodical like epilepsy. His treatment consists of ligatures to the extremities, with friction, sprinkling rose-water on the face, applying fetid things to the nose, and the other means used in cases of suspended animation. At the same time he directs us to apply fragrant things to the parts of generation, and dry cupping to the hypogastric region. This is the treatment during a fit. To remove the tendency to the affection he recommends the warm bath medicated with wormwood, bay-leaves, marjoram, &c. fetid pills, hiera picra, and the like; and when connected with suppression of the menstrual discharge, he directs bleeding at the ankle, or even at the arm, if there be fulness and redness of the face. If the woman is unmarried, he recommends a change of life. Alsaharavius states that there is this difference between the hysterical and the epileptic convulsion, that in the former the woman does not lose her senses nor emit foam at the mouth. Like Haly, he directs us to bleed at the ankle when the menses are obstructed, to apply cupping-instruments to the thighs and hypogastric region, and to take diuretics and emmenagogues. There is nothing peculiarly interesting in Rhases, as his account of the disease is collected from preceding authors. One of them seems to say that the ascension of the uterus is not real but apparent. He remarks that affections of the uterus are attended with pain of the occiput.