http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/stories/person/1478 Stories and external links referencing a person (RSS) en http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/medical-texts-and-other-fictions <!--paging_filter--><p>In the 19th century, hysteria was considered one of the most common disorders afflicting women. Doctors advised parents to keep their daughters from riding horseback, eating vanilla, or reading novels, for fear they might develop the condition. Janet Beizer, a Harvard scholar of 19th century French literature, was so struck by the pervasiveness of this theme that she decided to study the literary and cultural significance of the phenomenon. "I thought it was going to be about how novelists used the medical idea of hysteria, but I realized that the medical texts were just as literary as the novels.</p> <p><a href="http://harvardscience.harvard.edu/medicine-health/articles/medical-texts-and-other-fictions">read more</a></p> Mon, 26 Mar 2007 05:26:52 -0400 70652986 3306 at http://harvardscience.harvard.edu