The Provincetown History of Sex Museum  by, Toys of Eros THE BIRTH OF THE VIBRATOR It all began in ancient Greece, when Hippocrates decided that almost all diseases that befell women were due to an illness of their reproductive system. He called this disease Hysteria. (Hysto is Latin for uterus.)  His treatment for hysteria was to induce a “paroxysm.” Hippocrates’ recorded instructions for other physicians, explaining how to induce a paroxysm and cure hysteria: