Search

This paper discusses the establishment of the first Protestant church in midnineteenth-century Jerusalem, under Ottoman rule, relying mainly on British Foreign Office archives. It begins with an introduction to the geopolitical context for the spread of Protestantism in Greater Syria, with particular focus on Palestine, including Britain's initial diplomatic efforts to achieve this goal and the challenges it faced on different fronts. The discussion situates these challenges and the ways Britain overcame them within the context of Ottoman imperial regulations, which recurringly stalled or halted construction efforts. As a result, Britain's hopes of establishing a Protestant church in Jerusalem, and the Ottoman sultan's frequent obstruction of these efforts, reflect the layered British-Ottoman relations in the nineteenth century. The paper ends with an examination of the ways the British government managed to secure an Ottoman permit (firman) issued by the sultan, that allowed the completion of the church's construction in 1849. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this second paper in a series of four, we examine how the era of sustained economic growth also gave rise to recurring economic crises. Assessing the economic turbulence of the late 19th century and the early 20th century, and three prominent crises of the 20th and early 21st centuries: the period following the Second World War, the 1980–1981 Recession and the 2008 Financial Crisis, we survey how the economy and policy have reacted historically to shocks to growth, how crises have restructured industry and work, altering productivity and impacting future growth potential, and how the long-run growth trend persists despite periods of decline or stagnation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early in the nineteenth century, members in the UK Parliament (MPs) hardly ever debated education. When they did, it was nearly always in the context of aid for the religious instruction of the poor. Indeed, even by 1850, nearly two decades after the first Great Reform Act (1832), the Prime Minister Lord John Russell made the case that a system of compulsory state schooling would be immoral and un-British. Yet, by the '80s, MPs debating in Westminster routinely drew connections between schooling and the most critical social issues of the day: social-class mobility and equity, child welfare, national development, emigration, and the civil service, among others. What explains the expanding, and expansive, political uses that elite policymakers put to schooling? How did schooling and education take on such an aggrandized role in society for British statesmen? To address these questions, this paper combines natural language processing techniques, semantic network, discourse, and regression analyses to read and interpret the ∼1.1 million political speeches given in the UK Houses of Parliament during the long nineteenth century (1804–1913). In contrast to explanations emphasizing the direct role that economic, social, and political development as well as conflict played in the UK state's historic expansion, this piece demonstrates how social scientization, the sweeping international epistemic movement that institutionalized and diffused functionalist social theory, created the context that made it possible for political elites to see and promote schooling as an effective policy instrument of greater cultural rationalization supporting the development of capitalist industrial society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The story of carriage cleaners has been sadly neglected in the history of railway workers. The work has low pay, it is sometimes unpleasant, and it is also physically tough. This panorama paper explores some of the literature surrounding the history of carriage cleaners from the earliest records in the nineteenth century, through the two world wars, up to the early days of privatisation. The focus is on female carriage cleaners, exploring the reasons why their work has been hidden from history and putting forward an argument as to why more attention should be drawn to it. Despite its low pay and poor working conditions, cleaning work is found at an important nexus of the railway economy, ensuring that the spaces of railway travel remain sanitary and functional. Given their importance for the operation of the railway transport system, it is surprising that cleaners remain largely invisible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates whether high borrowing costs deterred investment in sanitation infrastructure in late nineteenth-century Britain. Town Councils had to borrow to fund investment, with considerable variation in interest rates across towns and over time. Panel regressions, using annual data from more than 800 town councils, indicate that higher interest rates were associated with lower levels of infrastructure investment between 1887 and 1903. Instrumental variable regressions show that falling interest rates after 1887 stimulated investment and led to lower infant mortality. These findings suggest that Parliament could have expedited mortality decline by subsidizing loans or facilitating private borrowing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses how gluten was discussed by chemists in the nineteenth century in Great Britain and France as a proxy for both nutritive and baking quality. It examines the role of gluten in the broader quest to measure and render the quality of wheat and flour through a set of objective and quantifiable criteria. The paper also shows how measuring quality proved to be an extremely complex task, and how chemistry was, by itself, unable to reduce the complexity of the wheat grain, and the various demands made upon it, to a simple numerical indicator. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Painting with oil over photographs on canvas was a widespread practice in the nineteenth century, mainly for the production of portraits and copies of oil paintings. It flourished in a context where both photographers and traditional painters were trying to innovate and adjust to new technological advances and demands of their time. However, despite the popularity of oil-painted photographs, they have not been the subject of substantial technical and historical study, which resulted in most of these photo-paintings not having been properly identified. Therefore, this research looks at the photographic processes used for printing on canvas in the UK between 1850 and 1890, knowledge of which is necessary for the identification of photo-paintings. It also looks at how the practice of the Austrian painter and photographer Georg Koberwein (1820–1876) fits within this context, including the examination of four paintings by the artist in the Royal Collection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

English anatomical terminology has evolved over the long history of anatomical practice, with major influences from ancient Greek, classical Latin, Arabic, and post-classical Latin. Beginning in the nineteenth century, there have been various attempts to standardise and rationalise anatomical language, beginning in 1887, and culminating in the publication in 2019 of the second edition of the Terminologia Anatomica. This paper presents a brief historical overview of the development of anatomical terminology and usage in English, followed by a summary of the results of an anonymised survey of current practices that was sent out by email to anatomy educators at 45 medical schools in the United Kingdom. This is followed by personal reflections by six senior academics and/or clinicians, reviewing their extensive experience of teaching, researching, and communicating the language of anatomy within United Kingdom medical and clinical institutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Charles Lloyd Tuckey (1854–1925) was one of the leaders of the British 'New Hypnotism' movement of the late nineteenth century. This neglected figure is important because of his contributions to the early psychotherapies in Britain, ushering in the concept of suggestion to British medicine from Europe. Through his networks and clubs, Tuckey demonstrates the bewildering range of institutions that shaped and spread the novel theory of suggestion and the nascent talking therapies at this time. His affiliations to psychic investigation and ceremonial magic societies demonstrate his intellectual curiosity rather than backwards primitivism. Tuckey played an important role in establishing the term 'psychotherapeutics' and legitimising medical hypnotism, a precursor of the psychological therapies of the early twentieth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Afghanistan is the country in the world with the most SALW (small arms and light weapons). Contrary to what is usually assumed, the proliferation of modern firearms in the country did not start in the 1980s, but at the end of the 19th century, when Pashtun tribes acquired modern rifles and ammunition through a variety of means, mostly through smuggling. The paper investigates the illegal arms trade from the Gulf to the north-western Indian Frontier, an area of crucial importance for British imperial strategists and the Government of India, at a time of great power rivalry and a relative decline of Britain's global influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black people's contributions to print ventures have been constant and manifold across the Atlantic world during the past centuries. If enslavement and forced labor dictated their involvement in many instances, Black people from early on also adopted the roles of authors, contributors, subscribers, and, notably, editors of different print materials. This collection of essays pays respect to different embodiments of Black editors in the Atlantic world, highlighting that from North to South America to Great Britain they occupied and promoted multifaceted roles, agendas, and poieses during a transformative period in the Atlantic world, the long nineteenth century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Practices labelled as corrupt in nineteenth-century European elections are generally conceived either as a form of domination where the candidates and their agents use exclusive resources for personal gain or a means of transaction between candidates and voters, on the assumption that candidates deploy corrupt practices in order to perusade voters. Consequently, electoral corruption in the nineteenth century is considered a tool that limits the participation of enfranchised citizens, whose conception of corruption is largely uncultivated. This study challenges this notion and demonstrates how corrupt practices by electors in societies where freedom was not guaranteed, did not restrain but instead extended the possibilities of political participation. The novelty of this study is based on integrating research focused on politicization beyond the elite and the new history of corruption, using Great Britain, France, and Spain as case studies. This integrated process found that corruption was used by electors to overturn unfavourable results, thus providing a platform for participation beyond voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using the US Commissioner of Labor household survey, we estimate calories available to workers' households in USA, Belgium, Britain, France and Germany in 1888/90. We make raw comparisons of the data and utilise propensity score matching techniques to attempt to overcome differences between the nature of the country samples included in the original survey. We find that US households had on average 500 daily calories per capita more than French and Germans households, with the Belgians and British households closer to the USA. We ask if US workers had more energy for work, once likely differences in stature between national sub-samples are taken into account, and conclude it was a minor advantage. Finally, we ask if economic migration leads to taller children. We find that US-based British households were able to provide more calories than those in Britain in response to an additional child, so that, other things being equal, their children would grow taller. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article suggests a way to inquire into animal protection politics as a specific field of international politics which regulates human-animal relations. Based on a genealogical analysis of the emergence of animal protection thinking in 19th and 20th century Great Britain, it argues that animal protection is structured by two specific strategies, anti-cruelty and animal welfare, that constitute our knowledge of what animal protection is and how it can be achieved. Whereas animal welfare suggests that animal protection means the meticulous technical standardisation of animal use along the scientific knowledge about particular species' stress levels, anti-cruelty takes a moral approach and suggests that animal protection can be achieved by taming the cruel human subject by means of legal prohibition. The article uses these strategies as an interpretative lens for analysing the EU's behaviour in the seal products case. It argues that the ban of the trade in seal products can be understood as the result of the anti-cruelty strategy gaining dominance in the EU debates on its seal policy. Moreover, in the ensuing WTO struggle the moral undertones of anti-cruelty made it possible for the EU to frame the ban as the protection of public morals under Article XX (a) GATT and thus to establish animal protection as a legitimate ground for trade restrictions. The antagonistic identity construction attached to anti-cruelty moreover made it possible for the EU to constitute itself as a morally superior subject and to re-emerge as a normative power in the context of animal protection. The article concludes by reflecting about further avenues for research on international animal protection politics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food markets were a vital element in the economic life of Britain over many centuries, and the arrival of railways into urban spaces during the nineteenth century provided unprecedented opportunities for them to expand the range and volume of good that they sold. This article examines the impact of railways on these markets during the decades following the arrival of trains into London through a case study of Borough Market. This important London fruit and vegetable market is examined through the prism of its financial records. Detailed analysis of the Market's income produces a timeline for growth, while the records for the goods ported through the Market help to explain the change. The case study also highlights developments in trading techniques at Borough Market that enabled it to prosper during the second half of the nineteenth century, despite limitations placed on its expansion created by the impact of railways on the urban physical environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first half of the nineteenth century the Cornish economy was thriving, dominated by the metal mining industry. When the economy was thriving Cornish wrestling was at the height of its popularity when a large number of wrestlers entered numerous tournaments for lucrative prizes and witnessed by large crowds. It was also the time when the sport flourished in London. The leading wrestler during this period was Tom Gundry, who in a relatively short career won many of the tournaments in Cornwall, Devon and London and consequently was able to amass a significant sum in prize money. Despite his prominence he occasionally resorted to match-fixing or 'faggoting' with his opponents. During the second half of the nineteenth century, however, there was a collapse of the economy which had a deleterious effect upon Cornish wrestling with decreases in numbers of wrestlers, tournaments, prize money and spectators. The sport also disappeared from London. The common thread running throughout the nineteenth century is a 'persistence of difference'. Cornwall's historical experience was different from the rest of Britain and that difference has persisted over time and has led to a unique identity. Cornish wrestling contributed to the construction of that identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper discusses an interdisciplinary research project testing the efficiency of European Bronze Age axes through experiments with replica tools and the usewear analysis of prehistoric axe-heads from the collections of the Great North Museum, Newcastle upon Tyne (UK). The project explores whether changes in axe-head design and hafting arrangement from early to late Bronze Age might have been motivated by a desire to improve tool efficiency. The team, comprising researchers with backgrounds in archaeology, engineering, and statistical data modelling, carried out several field and laboratory tests to address the research problem. They subsequently validated the test results through the microscopic analysis of original Bronze Age axe-heads. The data suggest that hafting technology, and especially the resilience of the haft-blade assembly, is more important than axe-head design per se in determining the efficiency and working performance of Bronze Age axes. The research provides a fresh answer to a question rooted in 19th century archaeology and charts an innovative multidisciplinary pathway for studying human technology through the ages. • Axes changed their head designs and hafting technologies throughout the Bronze Age. • The resilience of the haft-blade assembly is more important than axe-head design per se in determining axe efficiency. • Experimental archaeology, usewear analysis, and tribology can be used to test the working parameters of ancient tools. • Statistical methods can be used to validate the results of these tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article studies the account of travels in Palestine by one of the most controversial travel writers in early nineteenth century Britain, James Silk Buckingham, whose life, career, and writings sparked a political storm. Buckingham criticised British imperial and missionary activities in the East through his journalism and travel books which reached large audiences. He was the first writer in nineteenth century Britain to use a travel narrative about Palestine as a medium to develop and express liberal, anti-colonial attitudes at a time when Britain's imperial stock in the Middle East was on the rise. While in Palestine, Buckingham uncovered evidence that confirmed and justified his liberal views. He exposed the hypocrisy of missionary activities and undermined the rising calls in Britain for restoring the Jews. He did not call for possessing the land and reconstituting it anew; nor did he see it, as his countryman the Earl of Shaftesbury did, as an empty land needing the restoration of its original Jewish possessors. Yet the fact that he saw the land as a repository of religious fanaticism to which all religions contributed indicate his limited understanding of the diverse communities of Palestine. As this article shows, Palestine, in Buckingham's travelogue, constituted a test case, a laboratory for testing anti-colonial and liberal ideals rather than a land of invested identities and ways of life of equal worth to those in Europe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studies of the Victorian 'beard movement' of the 1850s have demonstrated the close connections between facial hair and shifting ideas of, and concerns about, masculinity, gender, sexuality and modernity. The 'beard movement' is generally seen as the return of facial hair after 150 years of beardlessness. The turn of the nineteenth century, however, witnessed a new and previously overlooked fashion for side-whiskers among young British men, one that initially caused controversy and ridicule, but which gradually became acceptable as a male accoutrement, and spurred a market for cosmetic products. What might be termed the 'whiskers movement' of the early 1800s offers a new and earlier perspective on facial hair as a form of embodied masculinity, and its place in contemporary debates about manliness, male fashion and appearance, sexuality and effeminacy, and political and revolutionary affiliations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Medical interest in the knee-jerk reflex began in about 1875 with simultaneous and independent publications by Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840–1921) and Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal (1833–1890) contending that the knee jerk was absent (and the ankle clonus was present) in all clear cases of locomotor ataxia (tabes dorsalis). Physicians in the medical communities of Europe, Great Britain, and North America responded with case and large group studies that tested this contention. These studies revealed the usefulness of the knee jerk and other myotatic reflexes, but also unexpected characteristics. The knee jerk, apparently so simple, proved to be a complex phenomenon depending the strength of the strike on the patella, induced muscle tension, and inhibition from the brain. Was it a reflex with afferent and efferent nerves and an intervening process in the spinal cord, or was it a local phenomenon confined to the muscle itself? Experimental studies directed at the reflex issue investigated latencies from patella strike to leg extension or muscle contraction and compared them with latencies from direct muscle strikes and theoretical calculations based on reflex components. Such studies were unable to resolve the reflex issue during the nineteenth century. The physicians were shown to be limited, like all scientific explorers of the unknown, by their knowledge, methodology, and technology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The history of British and French society over the long nineteenth century can be framed as two contrasting histories of bureaucratization. In France, a "rational" body of organizational rules and procedures coalesced quickly around the state, taking their paradigmatic form during the First Republic and Empire (1792-1814) but stagnating thereafter. In Britain, these structures developed piecemeal, and over a longer time, gaining relative coherence by the midcentury. In both cases, however, office work became a major social, ideological, and cultural phenomenon, one that warranted literary portrayal despite its apparent unconduciveness to conventional narrative forms. In this article I illustrate the shifting character of "office novels" within these contexts, and I accordingly operate from both a comparative and a longitudinal perspective: comparing novels from France and Britain produced during the midcentury period (pivotal in the history of bureaucracy and of the novel) that focus on office life. I argue that the changing role of the office career between William Makepeace Thackeray's abortive office Bildungsroman The History of Samuel Titmarsh (1841) and Anthony Trollope's The Three Clerks (1858) reflects the reform, saturation, and ideological legitimation of bureaucratic forms in Britain over this period. Meanwhile, the transition from Honor'e de Balzac's highly reflexive satirical novel Les Employ'es (1844) to E' mile Gaboriau's office-hopping Picaresque Les Gens de Bureau (1862) reflects an increasing jadedness in France about the ability of these structures to change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

And what is one to make of the writings of the painters themselves, which Burritt faithfully quotes, showing how much the biblical past dictated their understanding and anticipation of future Christian fulfilment in the land of Christ? These three painters traveled to and in the Holy Land: Roberts in 1838-39, Wilkie in 1840-41, and Hunt, four times, in 1854-55, 1869-72, 1876-78, and 1892. , by Amanda M. Burritt; pp. xxi + 239. [Extracted from the article]

The British colonies, which contributed the lion's share of Britain's geographical expansion during the nineteenth century, also provided the largest material contribution to Britain's industrialization, and much-needed ecological relief (in the form of land), through trade. Nevertheless, not all types of colonialism mattered equally. The biggest land relief came from the settler colonies in British North America and Australasia. The slave-based colonies were not as instrumental in alleviating Britain's land constraints as the nineteenth century progressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A history of the women who contributed to research of arachnids in Britain during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is presented. Publication trends, notable achievements, and membership of the British Arachnological Society (BAS) and its Council are all discussed. A checklist of all published work by female arachnologists in publications of the British Arachnological Society from its inception (as the Flatford Mill Spider Group) in 1958 to the year 2000 is given. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contrast to the way economic history is often presented, our aim is to provide a concise coverage of economic growth in the UK in four short essays that are written for a general audience of non-economists. In this first essay, we explore the drastic change Britain underwent in the mid-18th century, as agriculture and traditional production methods began to mechanise, increasing productivity to exceed the limits of the land and human strength. For the first time, people witnessed increases in the standard of living within a generation as national wealth soared. It ended centuries of subsistence living in which growth was negligible. As the 19th century dawned, Britain welcomed the steam era, an ignition of modernity, transforming travel, trade and production. We shed light on the wider repercussions of Britain's economic dominance, highlighting the consequences of rapid urbanisation and assessing the implications of the era of Imperial strength. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late nineteenth century, the great powers of Europe have been advancing towards Asia and Africa. And it benefited from the Industrial Revolution to extend its influence to those two continents, and Korea was one of the countries that was attacked by Western powers, not only that, but it became an arena for competition between the United States, Russia, China and Japan. Historians usually focus on the influence of the United States of America, Russia, China and Japan when they study the international relations of Korea and stay away from the attempts of British hegemony over Korea because it was weak compared to other Western countries such as Russia and the United States. However, it is very important to understand Great Britain's influence over Korea because London was the dominant power all over the world until the late twentieth century and for that it had competitions with most of the colonial powers. Throughout the nineteenth century, free trade policy became the most important principle of British diplomatic policy even after Great Britain immersed itself in colonial imperialism, using military force as a basis for promoting trade., Russia sought to reach the warm waters and advanced to the Black Sea, India and East Asia, which represented a threat to the economic and political interests of Great Britain in China and India. As a result, various tensions were aroused between Russia and Great Britain in the nineteenth century and one of the areas of this competition and tensions was Korea. Britain tried to maintain the balance of power in East Asia, so it maintained a friendly relationship with China before the First Sino- Japanese War, and also promoted friendly relations with Japan after the war. The ultimate goal of this policy was to prevent Russia's expansion in East Asia. Trade in it is relatively small as a tool for maintaining economic interests in China and its policy has proven very successful. Consequently, Britain maintained its economic priority in China for decades and peacefully dealt with military tensions such as the First Sino- Japanese War and the Russo-Japanese War [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present article is built on the premise that both the British Empire in the 19th century (during its rivalry with Russia, known as the Great Game) and the United States in the 20th century treated Afghanistan as a means to an end in their quest to fulfil their strategic interests, without much concern for the country's people, history and traditions, which ultimately contributed to their failure: Britain was forced to accept Afghanistan's independence in 1919 at the end of the third Anglo-Afghan war, while the US withdrew its troops in August 2021, putting an end to what proved to be an unwinnable war. The article's main body examines the British and American presence in Afghanistan through the lens of a historical comparison meant to highlight the similarities and differences in their approaches, while the conclusion contains a few lessons the US should learn from Afghanistan that might, ideally, inform its future interventionist strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Archaeological evidence from Britain shows botanical inclusions formed part of the post-medieval funeral. Findings from the analysis of three burial grounds consider the extent of demographic, socioeconomic, and local variation in the manner of tributes. Twenty-six of 1431 excavated burials showed evidence for flowers placed inside or bouquets or wreaths placed on top of the coffins, and adults and children had received botanical tributes. The use of tributes increased during the later nineteenth century but local variation existed in the manner and extent of botanical tributes adopted but trends can be affected by biases introduced by preservation and survival between different sites. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this evaluation of provincial Jewish communities, Levene challenges a prevailing view of industrialism: that it severed cherished family ties and replaced them with mere communities of circumstance. Jews in Nineteenth-Century Britain: Charity, Community and Religion, 1830-1880, by Alysa Levene; pp. vi + 248. In it, Levene examines maps, statistics, census data, and communal records to understand social, geographical, and transpatial notions of community among provincial Jews. [Extracted from the article]

In the historical context of the development and modernization of the press, of an increasingly intense transnational circulation of ideas and of editorial styles, this essay sets out to analyze the reasons why reading rooms specialized in the foreign-language press, especially in English—for which the market was narrow—were successful in Paris during the first half of the nineteenth century. It examines the consequences of the circulation of the normally difficult to access British periodicals and newspapers, such as the Edinburgh Review, the Quarterly Review and the Westminster Review present in these reading rooms, on the transformation of the French media system. In the 1850s and 1860s, the wind started to change direction. By then, on the other side of the Channel, Alexander Macmillan and Mathew Arnold had become fervent admirers of the famous Revue des deux mondes. This turnabout testifies to the complexity of the mechanisms at work behind transnational cultural transfers and media innovation in France and in Britain at the time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Happiness economics theorizes that economic growth is only tenuously connected to happiness. This article tests this theory on historical evidence by quantifying the trend in emotional well-being (EWB) of British men during the period of rapid industrialization between 1800 and 1900, using a digitized corpus of 19,682 pamphlets published in Britain during this period and held by JSTOR. EWB is measured between these years using a sentiment analysis method of quantifying the frequency over time of a set of positive-valence ("happy") word groups relative to negative-valence ("sad") word groups in the corpus, finding that it remains trendless throughout. This method thereby also provides insight into the quality of life of men during the Industrial Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The idea of 'Greater Britain' has been associated with the later Victorian era, but it was anticipated in most important particulars. This article examines perhaps the most ambitious single text on the British empire produced during the first half of the nineteenth century: Robert Montgomery Martin's five-volume, 3,000 page History of the British Colonies. Published in 1834-5, in the midst of seminal debates over imperial administrative and commercial policy, Martin's opus offered the first comprehensive account of Britain's overseas possessions. Read in context, the History emerges as a political clarion call. It sought not only to awaken the British to the worth and unity of their allegedly undervalued foreign dependencies, but also to intervene in specific controversies about the workings of imperial government, and to reveal the Divine purpose that lay behind Britain's ascent to global power. Martin's History, it is suggested, was a monumental and in some ways path-breaking attempt to fuse religion and statistics with arguments about the future of the empire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

"Hysteria" and "hystero-epilepsy" were common medical diagnoses among physicians during the nineteenth century. In Paris, L'Hôpital de la Salpêtrière—originally a hospice for the poor and a prison for prostitutes and other female inmates—became a center of great interest for the possible role of neurological diseases in these conditions. At the same time in the Americas and Europe, gynecologists were removing women's ovaries in cases with the same clinical conditions, which emphasized the role of the ovaries in contemporary hysteria studies in France, Great Britain, and the United States. The objective of this article is to explore nineteenth-century conceptualizations of ovarian pain as an organ-pathological substrate for a portion of these diagnoses. The theoretical role of the pelvic organs in these diagnoses has waxed and waned over the centuries, but there have not been many detailed explorations of the associated clinical phenomena. Suggesting an organic basis (le substratum organique) for the diagnoses remains a precarious notion, given the universally repudiated role of the uterus and decreasing interest in the ovary. In contemporary literature, the potential role of the ovary has not been addressed from a detailed medical perspective, however. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]