From Hysteria to Hormones: A Rhetorical History (RSA Series in Transdisciplinary Rhetoric)

In __From Hysteria to Hormones__, Amy Koerber examines the rhetorical activity that preceded the early twentieth-century emergence of the word __hormone__ and the impact of this word on expert understandings of women’s health. Shortly after Ernest Henry Starling coined the term “hormone” in 1905, hormones began to provide a chemical explanation for bodily phenomena that were previously understood in terms of “wandering wombs,” humors, energies, and balance. In this study, Koerber posits that the discovery of hormones was not so much a revolution as an exigency that required old ways of thinking to be twisted, reshaped, and transformed to fit more scientific turn-of-the-century expectations of medical practices. She engages with texts from a wide array of medical and social scientific subdisciplines; with material from medical archives, including patient charts, handwritten notes, and photographs from the Salpêtrière Hospital, where Dr. Jean Charcot treated hundreds of hysteria patients in the late nineteenth century; and with current rhetorical theoretical approaches to the study of health and medicine. In doing so, Koerber shows that the boundary between older, nonscientific ways of understanding women’s bodies and newer, scientific understandings is much murkier than we might expect. A clarifying examination of how the term “hormones” preserves key concepts that have framed our understanding of women’s bodies from ancient times to the present, this innovative book illuminates the ways in which the words we use today to discuss female reproductive health aren’t nearly as scientifically accurate or socially progressive as believed. Scholars of rhetoric, gender studies, and women’s health will find Koerber’s work provocative and valuable.

In From Hysteria to Hormones, Amy Koerber examines therhetorical activity that preceded the early twentieth-centuryemergence of the word hormone and the impact of this wordon expert understandings of women's health.

Shortly after Ernest Henry Starling coined the term "hormone" in1905, hormones began to provide a chemical explanation for bodilyphenomena that were previously understood in terms of "wanderingwombs," humors, energies, and balance. In this study, Koerberposits that the discovery of hormones was not so much a revolutionas an exigency that required old ways of thinking to be twisted,reshaped, and transformed to fit more scientificturn-of-the-century expectations of medical practices. She engageswith texts from a wide array of medical and social scientificsubdisciplines; with material from medical archives, includingpatient charts, handwritten notes, and photographs from theSalpêtrière Hospital, where Dr. Jean Charcot treated hundreds ofhysteria patients in the late nineteenth century; and with currentrhetorical theoretical approaches to the study of health andmedicine. In doing so, Koerber shows that the boundary betweenolder, nonscientific ways of understanding women's bodies andnewer, scientific understandings is much murkier than we mightexpect.

A clarifying examination of how the term "hormones" preserveskey concepts that have framed our understanding of women's bodiesfrom ancient times to the present, this innovative book illuminatesthe ways in which the words we use today to discuss femalereproductive health aren't nearly as scientifically accurate orsocially progressive as believed. Scholars of rhetoric, genderstudies, and women's health will find Koerber's work provocativeand valuable.

Hormones and hysteria : a rhetorical topology -- Hysteria from ancient texts until the nineteenth century : the womb as topological space -- Charcot's circus : nineteenth-century science of hysteria as a moment of stasis -- Stasis unsettled : the early twentieth-century rise of endocrinology -- Topology of sex difference : a long history of men saying outrageous things about women's reproductive organs -- Illuminating women : metaphor and movement after centuries of "groping in the dark"--This is your [female] brain on hormones : enthymeme in contemporary discourse -- From hysteria to hormones