16. The buttocks were a particularly sensitive area for sufferers of the glass delusion – making everyday life extremely stressful
Curiously, concern over the fragility of the buttocks was quite common among sufferers of the glass delusion. Medical notes dating back to 1561 tell of one man, a resident of the Saint Germain suburb of Paris, who was so convinced that his backside was made of glass that he was even too afraid to sit on a toilet. In the end, a doctor’s tough love cured him of his affliction: rather than pandering to his patient’s whimsy, the physician simply thrashed him, proving that the man’s buttocks were indeed made of human flesh rather than glass.
