sent to a sanatorium and be forced to undergo a hysterectomy. As Mortimer speaks, he explains that the symptoms for hysteria are too common to be regarded as a mental illness, and that he himself believes that Charlotte is the most generous and caring person he knows. The judge agrees with Mortimer's argument, and Charlotte is sentenced to just thirty days in prison for her assault on the policeman. Emily decides to end her engagement to Granville, after realising her only motive was to please her father. The vibrator now enters the stage as a medical device for the treatment of the condition, reducing treatment time while greatly increasing customer satisfaction. The royalties from its sale result in independent wealth for Granville, who has fallen in love with Charlotte. Pledging to use some of his wealth to establish a clinic at her settlement house, he proposes marriage to Charlotte and she accepts. Cast Historical background The film is based on historian Rachel Maines's 1999 book The Technology of Orgasm, which includes the claim that manual genital massage of women had been a common medical remedy since antiquity. In 2010, however, Maine’s thesis was rebutted by Helen King, and a 2018 paper by Hallie Lieberman and Eric Schatzberg dismisses this idea as false, with no more than "circumstantial evidence that a few physicians and midwives may have practiced genital massage before the 20th century". Hysteria was a recognized malady until the American Psychiatric Association discontinued this term in 1952. Dr. Joseph Mortimer Granville filed the first patent for an electromechanical vibrator termed Granville's Hammer in about 1883. Granville, however, did not apply his invention in the treatment of hysteria; rather, he used it to treat muscular disorders. Some believe that other physicians started to apply the vibrator for the treatment of hysteria, but this claim is under dispute, with Lieberman and Schatzberg writing that Maines "fails to cite a single source that openly describes use of the vibrator to massage the clitoral area". Reception The film received mixed reviews, garnering a score of 53 out of 100 (based on 33 reviews) at Metacritic. Rotten Tomatoes reported a score of 58% based on 118 reviews and a consensus of "Hysteria has an amusing subject but its winking, vaguely sarcastic tone doesn't do the movie any favors." References External links 2011 films Biographical films about physicians British romantic comedy films 2010s English-language films