Green’s Dictionary of Slang

sterics n.

hysteria.

1765		Foote The Commissary 63: Fye upon you! you have thrown the old gentlewoman into the sterics.
1859		Chelmsford Chron. (Essex) 2 Sept. 3/4: [She] went to the complainant and found her ‘unsensed’; she was in faints or ‘sterics’, did not know which.
1865		Cheltenham Chron. 14 Nov. 3/3: Mistress was in awful ’sterics. I [...] gave her sal volatile.
1923		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 22 June 15/5: We smile to-day at the hysterical damsels of early Victorian days who ‘had sterics’ whenever they were crossed.
1937		Derby Dly Teleg. 13 Feb. 4/2: She screams very loud, and falls into sterics.