They’re indicative of society’s and individuals’ flight from reason into fantasy and self-destruction.
The “disease” of “hysteria” was the scourge of the front parlors and hospitals of the European elite in the 19th century. Even Sigmund Freud had a conflicted diagnostic go at hysteria. It was in the medical textbooks, in the meetings of surgeons and head shrinks, in the broadsheets, and in the minds and conversations of many a concerned lady. Fees for services flowed into the purses of medical practitioners — and doubtless also some quacks who worked to seek a cure for the overwrought ladies, inside and out, and rid them of the terrible hysteria menace.
