ABSTRACT
For over 3,000 years hysteria played an active part in pathology before any official classification of disease began a serious threat to deny its existence. Many unsuccessful attempts had been made to pin down hysteria as an individual item of disease, so that some were glad to be rid at last of this embarrassment to medical science. Others were surprised, even shocked, that such a venerable disease could be so lightly dismissed, apparently because a few physicians thought it did not exist. A few were indifferent to the news and, undeterred by the event, continued to work in their different ways with the unfinished story of hysteria.
