hys·ter·i·a (h-str-, -stîr-)
n.
1. Behavior exhibiting excessive or uncontrollable emotion, such as fear or panic.
2. A mental disorder characterized by emotional excitability and sometimes by amnesia or a physical deficit, such as paralysis, or a sensory deficit, without an organic cause.
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[New Latin : hyster(ic) + -ia.]
mass hysteria
•a condition in which a large group of people exhibit the same state of violent mental agitation
wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Psychiatrists and other physicians have in theory given up the use of "hysteria", replacing it with more accurate terms such as somatization disorder. In 1980 the American Psychiatric Association officially changed the diagnosis of "hysterical neurosis, conversion type" to "conversion disorder".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hysteriahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_hysteria[][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][][]
I think that Doctors do not like it when the public walks off with one of their terms of jargon.
The Public is not carefull to maintain the specificity of the term and are prone to allow the definition to wander off the mark , useing the term for anything close , or kinda close to the poorly understod origional definition.
So Doctors abandon the term , invent a new one and thereby preserve the impenatrable nature of their lexicon and their mystique.
Then the word or term , cut loose from its medical origins , wanders the halls of Journalism and public use gaining a commonly underestood menaing that may or may not resemble its origin.
I think a really good example is "Quantum" which for phycisists relates very small amounts of specific tiny size , but which the public has come to understand as relateing to giant leaps, almost an exact reversal. Physisiscts continue to use their origional terms tho , because unlike Doctors physisicists do not talk to the common man and remain unaware that their lingo is undergoing theft and mutilation.
