Ancient Greek beliefs about the wandering womb and the psychological problems it. engendered have parallels in late-nineteenth-century views of hysteria; Sigmund Freud's work with Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris led to his first full-length study of the subject in a book co-authored with Josef. Breuer, Studies in Hysteria (1895). This book attempted to understand the cause of a set of symptoms found in young women that included various physical pains with no. apparent cause, such as a choking sensation (also mentioned in the ancient sources). At first Freud looked for a physiological basis for the illness and performed a famous, almost fatal, operation on Emma Eckstein, under the misguided belief that surgery on her nose would cure her hysteria. He later abandoned this approach and turned instead to exploring the underlying psychological causes of this condition. Freud postulated that hysteria resulted...