Marital aids used to be medical aids

According to Cornell University researcher Rachel Maines, the first vibrator was invented in 1883 as a medical device. Doctors used it to give their patients "pelvic massages" to produce "hysterical paroxysm" as a cure for a disease they called hysteria. The device was designed to mechanize a job that doctors had been doing - believe it or not - by hand.

Maines chronicled her findings in the 1999 book The Technology of Orgasm. The real bombshell, she said, was that doctors had been giving women orgasms as a so-called medical treatment since the time of Hippocrates.

By the late 19th century, hysteria was hitting epidemic proportions, with women complaining of paralyzed limbs, sudden inability to speak, and other bizarre symptoms magically relieved by their doctor's touch.

But some doctors complained the technique was difficult to learn. According to one biographer, Sigmund Freud tried to learn it, Maines says, but never got the hang of it.