Health Clinical Practice and Epidemiology in Mental Health : CP & EMH Bentham Science Publishers and BioMed Central Women And Hysteria In The History Of Mental Health Cecilia Tasca, Mariangela Rapetti, [...], and Bianca Fadda Additional article information Abstract Hysteria is undoubtedly the first mental disorder attributable to women, accurately described in the second millennium BC, and until Freud considered an exclusively female disease. Over 4000 years of history, this disease was considered from two perspectives: scientific and demonological. It was cured with herbs, sex or sexual abstinence, punished and purified with fire for its association with sorcery and finally, clinically studied as a disease and treated with innovative therapies. However, even at the end of 19 th  century, scientific innovation had still not reached some places, where the only known therapies were those proposed by Galen. During the 20 th  century several studies postulated the decline of hysteria a