The Noble History of the Vibrator (blood, creation, America, sex)

[lilithu]

An office mate "turned me on" to the true history of the vibrator over lunch last week. I had no idea.

Hysteria is a term that was first coined by Hippocrates and described a medical condition peculiar to women; he considered it to be a symptom of irregular blood-movement from the uterus to the brain. The idea lasted through most of history, and in 1653 appears the first text that shows that the doctors of the era were using clitoral stimulation as a remedy for the nebulous ailment. Because of the limited technology of the time, this therapy had to be conducted by hand … er, uh … manually … A-HEM! … you get the point … anyway, this could be quite tiring for the doctors and midwives. The goal of treatment was for the patient to reach “paroxysm” which could take up to an hour to attain, but once reached would/should/could relieve hysterical symptoms for a while.
http://www.damninteresting.com/?p=618#

And from Slate:
The use of vulvular massage as a therapy for "hysterical" patients dates back to Hippocrates. During the 19th century, it caught on as a treatment for the rampantly diagnosed afflictions hysteria and neurasthenia. The doctor of Alice James, the sickly sister of the famous Henry and William, probably brought her routinely to "hysterical paroxysm."

The treatment wasn't generally thought of as sexual, but rather as ho-hum therapy. Not surprisingly, it was a cash cow for the medical profession. Women had to return week after week, year after year. But doing it by hand was exhausting, tedious work; some women had to be massaged for an hour before they reached paroxysm.

Thus, entrepreneurial doctors experimented with mechanizing the process. Hydrotherapy—the shooting of water directly at the patient's reproductive region—proved effective and became quite fashionable. It had its drawbacks, though: It was messy, expensive, and not easily portable.

In the 1880s, a British doctor stepped in to invent the first electric vibrator, an industrial-size contraption meant to be a permanent fixture in a doctor's office. It was a major labor-saver, allowing many patients to reach paroxysm in less than 10 minutes.

Around the turn of the century, entrepreneurs began to recognize the huge potential market for hand-held vibrators for home use. Vibrator innovation was in fact a driving force behind the creation of the small electric motor. Hamilton Beach of Racine, Wis., patented its first take-home vibrator in 1902, making the vibrator the fifth electrical appliance to be introduced into the home, after the sewing machine and long before the electric iron.

By 1917, there were more vibrators than toasters in American homes. Dozens of patents were issued for new designs between 1900 and 1940. Manufactured long before the era of engineered obsolescence, these machines were built to last. Many vibrators of this vintage still survive; at least a dozen are usually for sale on eBay at any given moment.

Starting in the 1920s, stag reels blew the vibrator's cover, revealing it to be the sex toy that it was. The most famous of these flicks was The Nun's Story (not to be confused with the 1959 Audrey Hepburn film of the same name). It starred the wife of bodybuilder Vic Tanney, who disrobes from her nun's habit and then reclines luxuriantly with her electric vibrator until a virile but clean-cut Peeping Tom shows up.

From the 1950s through the 1970s, the vibrator became what academics like to call a camouflaged technology. Mail-order catalogs full of household tchotchkes featured beautiful women with long, silky hair loosening their tight shoulder muscles with banana-shaped vibrators. Also popular were vibrators that doubled as nail-buffer kits, hair brushes, backscratchers, and some that were designed as attachments for vacuum cleaners. Most of them were cheesy, battery-operated devices that came in shag-carpet hues: avocado, gold, and burnt orange.

Vibrators came back into the mainstream in the 1990s, thanks not to radical feminists but to the Reagan administration. With the public health threat of AIDS looming, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop mailed out a list of safe-sex options to every household in the land in the late 1980s. Vibrators were on it.

For the complete text and slide show:
http://www.slate.com/id/2121835/

[Sunstone]

It's interesting that vibrators were so popular long before their use was openly socially acceptable.

[Buttercup]

Good grief! I cannot in a million, gazillion years imagine a doctor performing that type of "procedure" to relieve "hysteria" on me, can you? And for an hour????? Good gravy that's a freakin long time.

Thanks for the laugh. Got any more stories like that?

[Booko]

Originally Posted by Buttercup

Good grief! I cannot in a million, gazillion years imagine a doctor performing that type of "procedure" to relieve "hysteria" on me, can you? And for an hour????? Good gravy that's a freakin long time.

Now, which insurance company did you say provided coverage for that procedure?

[Shadow Wolf]

And for an hour????? Good gravy that's a freakin long time.

I wonder if insurance would cover such a procedure? Not to mention how high the doctor bill would be for an hours length of manual labor. But, it might have made medical school worth it, at least once in awhile.

[standing_alone]

Originally Posted by lilithu

...shows that the doctors of the era were using clitoral stimulation as a remedy for the nebulous ailment. Because of the limited technology of the time, this therapy had to be conducted by hand...

Aww, why couldn't I live back then? At least then I'd get some action...

[lilithu]

Originally Posted by standing_alone

Aww, why couldn't I live back then? At least then I'd get some action...

You do realize that doctors were all men back then, right?

[Buttercup]

Originally Posted by standing_alone

Aww, why couldn't I live back then? At least then I'd get some action...

Obviously you missed the subliminal message of the story......The origins of the vibrator..buy one today!