ABSTRACT
De nymphomania is the title of Johann Nietner’s dissertation, which he submitted to the University of Erfurt in 1694. Nietner’s 64-page long (or short) treatise deserves attention because it is one of the first texts to introduce the term ‘nymphomania’ for a disease that since the times of Hippocrates had figured under the name ‘hysteria’ or ‘furor uterinus’.1 By the eighteenth century nymphomania had become well established as a synonym for ‘furor uterinus’ in most of the major medical lexicons, for example Johann Jakob Woydt’s Schatzkammer Medicinisch-und natürlicher Dinge (first published in 1701) or Albrecht von Haller’s Medizinisches Lexicon (1756). Both register the term ‘nymphomania’ but refer the reader to ‘furor uterinus’ for its description.2 This practice suggests that the introduction of the term nymphomania does not indicate the discovery of a new disease, rather it reflects changes in the perception of the female genitalia – that is, the clitoris and labia (the so-called nymphae) – and helps to make visible a significant part of their history.
