A Male Hysteria

A history of diabetes science and the experience of diabetics in the nineteenth-century England A Male Hysteria examines both the science of diabetes in nineteenth-century England and the testimony of Victorian diabetics. What could be known about diabetes given the science of the day? And what did new models of diabetes mean for the treatment and self-image of diabetics? Ideas about diabetes were revolutionized in 1849 by the great French physiologist Claude Bernard. After he made rabbits diabetic by pricking their brains, diabetes in England came to be thought of as neurological, even psychological in origin. British diabetics (often men) were prevented from working or becoming excited, treated in the same manner as women who were diagnosed with hysteria. Meanwhile, discoveries in thermodynamics were applied to diabetics and menstruating women. People were assumed to be closed systems, wasting energy that couldn't be replenished. Thus, diabetics had to stay still if they wanted to