Doctors told to ‘ Listen to women ’ The healthcare sector has come a long way since ‘ hysteria ’, yet according to the UK ’ s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence ( NICE ), it takes up to eight years for a woman to be correctly diagnosed with endometriosis . NICE told doctors to ‘ listen to women ’.

Freud ’ s manual stimulation devices Freud diagnosed endometriosisrelated symptoms as hysteria . He believed this was caused by traumatic sexual experiences during childhood and treated patients with hypnosis or vaginal massages . The latter was obviously more popular with women , but male doctors found the process took so long , manual stimulation devices were used instead .

Problematic young females Neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot ( 1825- 1893 ) visited the Salpêtrière , a French insane asylum where he came across women suffering from hystero-epilepsy – suspected nowadays as undiagnosed endometriosis . Charcot recorded that these women were treated as “ problematic young females ”, who had been abandoned “ by their exhausted families ”. The ward was said to be “ the saddest at the Salpêtrière ”. healthcare-digital . com 15