FURTHERMORE
By Gerry Moran
I wouldn’t exactly call myself a hypochondriac: however, every now and then when I get a bad headache, that I can’t shake pff, I think – brain tumour! And then the Panadol kicks in, the headache subsides and the notion of brain tumour dissipates.
I mention all this because of a book I am reading at the moment titled A Body Made Of Glass, A History of Hypochondria by Caroline Crampton. I am reading this book just to check if, perhaps, I might be a hypochondriac. Well, I can tell you here and now – I am not. At least not compared to some of the hypochondriacs referenced in the book.
Let’s start in ancient Greece where a physician called Galen wrote of a strange condition in which a melancholic person became convinced he was made of pottery and avoided social contact for fear of bumping into people and being broken! In the 14th century this delusion had assumed a different form when sufferers became convinced that their bodies were made of glass and were liable to shatter! (A new variation, for sure, on the phrase: shattered!)
The French King, Charles V1, became gripped by this fear after suffering a nervous breakdown in a military campaign in 1392 and, to avoid any shattering, had his clothing reinforced with iron rods! Drainpipes perhaps!
Ms Crampton goes on to describe what may be an exaggerated account by a French royal physician who wrote of a Parisian glassmaker who believed his buttocks were made of glass and in order to protect his rear end went about with a small cushion affixed to his behind. The glass delusion hadn’t gone away and as late as 1964, a Dutch doctor encountered a patient who, believe it or believe it not, thought his body had become as transparent as a window!
And that’s where I’ll park A History Of Hypochondria for the time being, pleased in the knowledge that I’m not made of pottery and don’t have a glass ass!
And so to phobias – not entirely unrelated to hypochondria (an abnormal anxiety about one’s health). A phobia is an irrational, abnormal fear of something or other. For instance we are all familiar with claustrophobia, an abnormal fear of confined spaces; agoraphobia, a fear of open spaces or public places; pyrophobia, a fear of fire; hydrophobia, a fear of water; and arachnophobia, a fear of spiders (which the female of the species seem to be particularly prone to).
But here for your information and education are some phobias that I have never heard of in my entire life plus a few that we all suffer from but didn’t have the terminology for. Off we go: dendrophobia, a fear of trees; cherophobia, a fear of happiness (really?); batrachophobia (and try saying that with a few pints in – try saying even when sober) a fear of frogs; glossophobia, a fear of speaking in public (and many of us suffer from that one); hodophobia, fear of travel; mychophobia, fear of mushrooms; opthalmophobia, fear of being stared at; nomophobia, fear of being out of mobile phone contact (and we can all relate to that one also); pogonophobia’ fear of beards; spectrophobia, a fear of mirrors; tonitrophobia, a fear of thunder; gamophobia, fear of marriage and this obvious one cyberphobia, fear of computers which yours truly suffers hugely from as the Editor of this paper will testify to. And now I’ll park the phobias as I’m developing a phobia about phobias which I am calling phobiaphobia!
Finally, and staying in the medical zone, sort of, before Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), pictured, turned to psychoanalysis, he did important work on neurology and was the first to employ the use of cocaine as a local anaesthetic. His use of cocaine for minor pains and his high praise for its efficacy led to a wave of cocaine addiction in Europe before it was discovered that it was highly addictive!
Fast forward to 1986 when Pablo Escobar (1949-1993) the Columbian cocaine kingpin, was taking in $420 million a week!
Wonder what Freud would have made of that?
