Visible clouds of gas or mist; or historically, a nervous condition thought to be caused by bodily vapors.
From Latin 'vapor' meaning steam or mist. The medical condition 'the vapors' from the 1700s-1800s reflected the now-debunked humoral theory of medicine.
The Victorians blamed 'the vapors' (fainting, anxiety, depression) on mystical bodily gases—now we'd call it anxiety or depression, but people back then had no better framework!
Vapors/vapourism was a diagnosis applied almost exclusively to women from the 17th-19th centuries to pathologize anxiety, emotion, and dissent as organic illness caused by a 'wandering uterus'—a sexist medical myth.
In historical contexts, name it: 'the vapors diagnosis' or 'hysteria diagnosis' with critical framing that this was pseudoscience used to control women.
["fainting spells","anxiety","emotional distress (when discussing historical misdiagnosis)"]
Women's documented resistance to this diagnosis and reclamation of their emotional experience as valid (not medical defect) is foundational to modern psychology.
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