The word ‘nymphomania’, the concept of ‘madness from
the womb’ and the belief in the existence of a behaviour consisting in an
abnormally high female sexual drive converged during the second half of the
seventeenth century to give rise to a new clinical category which, with minor
changes, has survived until the present (e.g., in ICD-10).
This Classic Text, an excerpt from the work of Lazare Rivière, provides a
glimpse into the process whereby medical categories are constructed. According to
Rivière (and many others) ‘madness from the womb’ was
a disease which resulted from overheating and putrefaction of accumulated seed
(female sperm) in the womb. Like all medical constructs, ‘madness from the
womb’ (and soon nymphomania) included a symptomatology, natural history,
aetiology, prognosis and cure. It is also clear that it was rehash of the earlier
moral notion of ‘satyriasis’ (a male category applied to women)
and the expression of seventeenth-century changing male attitudes towards, and fears
of, female sexuality.
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