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Sick with worry?: A look at the arc of hypochondria

In the late Middle Ages, a strange fear swept parts of Europe. It’s an arc Caroline Crampton traces in her new book, A Body Made of Glass: A Cultural History of Hypochondria. The English naturalist Charles Darwin, Canadian pianist Glenn Gould, French novelist Marcel Proust and British poet John Donne all left behind traces of intense, unrelenting and unfounded concerns …

Hypochondria Crampton

Hypochondria history: Caroline Crampton’s book A Body Made of Glass, reviewed.

Hypochondriacs have a poor reputation. “On a per-novel basis,” writes Caroline Crampton in her history of hypochondria, A Body Made of Glass, “she surely outpaces any other writer in the English language” when it comes to such characters. Like most books labeled “cultural history,” A Body Made of Glass is drawn more from archival and textual sources than from firsthand …

Hypochondria

Hypochondriacs

Hypochondriac

Health anxiety, also known as Illness Anxiety Disorder or Hypochondria, is a disorder when a person worries excessively about having a serious medical condition. "There are several possible reasons why someone may develop health anxiety," wrote Mental Health Advocate Taylor Marae as she explained the signs of health anxiety. Here are the signs Worrying: When a person with health anxiety …

At the age of 28 I discovered a cure for hypochondria: I married a nurse. At about 9pm the consultant said he hoped to operate that night, but that he wouldn’t if it got beyond 11 o’clock: “I’m past my best when it gets towards midnight!” he joked. I’d found it almost impossible to reach my tonsils without being sick, …