Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book establishes the history of early modern beliefs about hysterica passio. By examining a host of medical texts from a variety of genres in order to contextualize the subsequent disagreements over diagnosing and treating hysterica passio as well as to contrast hysterical diseases with melancholy ailments, which scholarship has over privileged. It examines a case study for setting out how glosses to King Lear's notorious citation of the kings purported. Case of the mother can reveal bigger methodological problems in scholarship. A particular set of lines from one of Shakespeare's major tragedies illustrates the erasure of a historically specific disease category in an especially compelling way. The book evokes the expression of playwright habit of representing hysterical ailments on the early modern stage, namely the distinctive motif of female authorship of blood letters.