Vibrator Was Used As A Medical Device? Truth About Using It To Treat ‘Female Hysteria’

There are all sorts of bizarre little bits in medical history, such as treatments that would seem almost unbelievable today. Few stories get repeated as often as the one about vibrators and "hysteria." It's been retold in books, documentaries, and even a Hollywood film, usually presented as a well-documented fact. No, there's no reliable historical evidence that doctors routinely used vibrators to treat "hysteria" in women by inducing orgasm. 

So two historians went back to the sources to check this out and found something odd: The evidence just doesn't exist. Where did this story originate, and what was actually being done by doctors to cure hysteria? Here is the true story behind the myth.

What Was Female Hysteria?  

For centuries, women's hysteria was recognised as a medical problem, and its medical history goes back to ancient Greek medicine. A few key facts:

• Symptoms attributed to it were broad and vague, covering everything from anxiety to fatigue.
• It remained part of mainstream psychiatric classification surprisingly late.
• The condition was still listed in the American Psychiatric Association's DSM-II in 1968.
• It wasn't removed from psychiatric classification until the DSM-III in 1980.

female hysteria

Key Terminology Glossary

The Old Cure for Hysteria: What Doctors Actually Believed

For years, the widely accepted story of the old cure for hysteria came from a single, highly influential source: historian Rachel Maines' 1999 book, The Technology of Orgasm. Maines argued that Victorian physicians routinely performed "pelvic massage" to induce a "hysterical paroxysm" in hysterical female patients, and that vibrators were later adopted simply to make this labour-intensive treatment more efficient.

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The Invention of the Vibrator and Female Hysteria: Where the Myth Began

Maines' book became enormously influential. It inspired a Broadway play and the 2011 film Hysteria, and her claims were repeated across dozens of academic and popular sources.

The core idea: doctors didn't see the practice as sexual because it didn't involve penetration, so vibrators became a discreet, efficient medical tool.

Debunking Myths About Female Hysteria and Vibrators

In 2018, historians Hallie Lieberman and Eric Schatzberg published a paper in the Journal of Positive Sexuality examining every source Maines cited to support her claims. Their conclusion was blunt:

• "We could find no evidence that physicians ever used electromechanical vibrators to induce orgasms in female patients as a medical treatment."
• "Manual massage of female genitals was never a routine medical treatment for hysteria."

female hysteria (1)

Many historical vibrator attachments were, in fact, designed for penetrative use, undermining Maines' claim that doctors avoided penetration to keep the practice non-sexual.

The Role of Vibrators in Early Gynaecology

So what were vibrators actually used for? Genuinely, they were part of the electrotherapy boom, marketed for headaches, muscle pain, and general "nerve" complaints, alongside a huge range of other conditions, in both men and women. 

They were sold openly to the public, including in mainstream household catalogues, which itself argues against the idea that their use was secretly sexual, since such marketing would have been scandalous if true.

Evolution of Vibrators From Medical Tool to Pleasure Device

While vibrators were later connected to sexual pleasure, it was a slow process that took place throughout the 20th century and not as an ongoing clandestine medical practice. In a 2020 op-ed for The New York Times, Lieberman noted that the myth's popularity says as much about modern assumptions as it does about actual Victorian medicine. 

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Conclusion

The vibrator-hysteria story is a compelling one, which is likely part of why it spread so widely. But as one of the historical medical devices for women's health most misunderstood today, the real story is less about secret Victorian pleasure and more about how easily an unverified idea can become accepted fact.