"In archaic usage, the vapours (or vapors) is a reference to certain mental or physical states, such as hysteria, mania, clinical depression, bipolar disorder, lightheadedness, fainting, flush, withdrawal syndrome, mood swings, or PMS, where a sufferer lost mental focus. Ascribed primarily to women and thought to be caused by internal emanations (vapours) from the womb, it was related to the concept of female hysteria.
"The word "vapours" was subsequently used to describe a depressed or hysterical nervous condition. Today, the phrase "a case of the vapors" is most often used either melodramatically or for comedic effect."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vapours_(disease)
