The notes I read about this film calls the attack the masked woman -- the mask probably to protect her anonymity -- undergoes "a crisis of hysteria". To my unprofessional eye, it looks more like a grand mal epileptic seizure. The doctors bear down heavily on the woman's midriff to compress her uterus (the source of all hysteria).
Originally this was a series of twenty-four short subject like this, intended to show the latest and best techniques at a well espected facility for dealing with this sort of thing. Happily, in the last century, things have gotten a bit more effective. Still, it's interesting to see how these things used to be dealt with.