Frances Wilson

There’s nothing shameful about hypochondria

Caroline Crampton describes the real agonies of people obsessed with their fragility, revealing that her own hypochondria stems from a childhood cancer diagnosis

Charles VI of France receives the English envoys during a truce in the Hundred Years’ War (from Jean Froissart’s Chronicles). The king, known as both ‘the beloved’ and ‘the mad’, believed his flesh would shatter on contact and had his clothing reinforced with iron rods. [Alamy]
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  • A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria

    Caroline Crampton

    Granta, pp. 304, £16

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