ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that the fin de siecle is a prime period for the study of hysteria. Both neurologists and psychiatrists concentrate on hysteria and hysterical madness to subsequently dispose of it, after the failure of their knowledge on the matter. Hysteria is essentially psychic, namely not an illness; therefore there can be no question whatsoever of something like a specifically hysterical madness, namely a mental illness exclusively originating from hysteria. First eliminated as a possible diagnosis and as a signifier by the French neurologists under the influence of Babinski, who is to become Jean-Martin Charcot's official successor, hysterical madness and hysteria become outdated and old-fashioned entities; the diagnoses remain forthcoming. Another parallel development within psychiatry is the study of the psychoses, more precisely dementia praecox and schizophrenia. This evolution exerts a more lasting attraction to hysteria which is classified under it together with its psychotic variant.
