28. The glass delusion featured in medical textbooks of the time – and was just one of many strange conditions
This particular delusion emerged at a time of heightened anxiety across Europe, especially among the ruling classes. The book The Anatomy of Melancholy, written by the Oxford University scholar Robert Burton and published in 1621, lists the glass delusion as just one of a number of strange beliefs of the time. Indeed, as well as men who worry “that they are all glass”, Burton also wrote of people who believed they were made out of cork. Others believed that they were “as heavy as lead” or had “frogs in their bellies”, while some feared their heads would fall off their shoulders.
