6. Batteys Operation
These days, the cure for PMS is probably more along the lines of a hot water bottle, Netflix binge or, in more extreme cases, hormonal treatments. Back in the 19th Century, however, things were a little more drastic. At the time, female hysteria was a complex condition with symptoms ranging from melancholia to masturbation and was generally characterised by any kind of "unfeminine" behaviour. Because of the frankly massive range of symptoms, as many as a quarter of all Victorian women were thought to have hysteria - it was clearly out of control. The current popular treatments included the famous "vaginal massage" (and if that didn't work, locking them up in an asylum) didn't seem to be tackling the root of the problem, but Dr. Robert Battey thought he had a solution: Whip their ovaries out. The oophorectomy, which had already been used to treat ovarian cysts, became wildly popular in the treatment of non-gynecological conditions. There was even a eugenic justification for the sterilisation of "disordered" women, as the thinking was that they would be more likely to produce disordered offspring anyway.