{"id":5602,"date":"2024-05-05T09:01:47","date_gmt":"2024-05-05T09:01:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=5602"},"modified":"2024-05-05T09:28:45","modified_gmt":"2024-05-05T09:28:45","slug":"book-review-a-body-made-of-glass-by-caroline-crampton","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=5602","title":{"rendered":"Book Review: \u2018A Body Made of Glass,\u2019 by Caroline Crampton"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Caroline Crampton shares her own worries in \u201cA Body Made of Glass,\u201d a history of hypochondria that wonders whether newfangled technology drives us crazier.<\/p>\n

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A BODY MADE OF GLASS: A Cultural History of Hypochondria,<\/strong> by Caroline Crampton<\/p>\n

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British national identity is built on the stiff upper lip, but the author Caroline Crampton, who lives in Merseyside, has allowed hers to quaver and curl, and it\u2019s a relief.<\/p>\n

At 17, Crampton was diagnosed with Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. Actually, when the doctor announced his findings, she did<\/em> react with a stiff upper lip: stoic in the way that adolescents, who are still part children, can be before they are able to make sense of a situation. It was her mother who \u2014 quite understandably \u2014 fainted and slid off the chair.<\/p>\n

Crampton endured multiple courses of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and painful egg retrieval to maximize chances of preserving her fertility. Also understandably, she became in young adulthood anxious and vigilant about lumps, hair loss and other signs of bodily trouble.<\/p>\n

She is straightforward about identifying as a hypochondriac, although she understands that in modern times people like her are often stigmatized or disbelieved, as she writes in \u201cA Body Made of Glass,\u201d a beguiling new book about the condition, both individual and zeitgeisty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She seeks to reclaim the term, palpate its various meanings over time and show how porous the line between mental and physical health has always been. This occasions reacquaintance with humors, vapors, pallor and other archaic but picturesque medical concepts.<\/p>\n

\u201cA Body Made of Glass\u201d is named for a fascinating delusion of feeling \u201cfragile, brittle and extremely smashable\u201d that afflicted King Charles VI of France and the hero of a 1613 novella by Cervantes, and that, in Crampton\u2019s framing, serves as a metaphor for humanity\u2019s current predicament \u2014 maximum optimization, yet a lingering sense of affliction<\/a>. (Before people started believing they were made of glass, incidentally, they fretted they might be made of pottery. Make mine Meissen<\/a>!)<\/p>\n

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Caroline Crampton shares her own worries in \u201cA Body Made of Glass,\u201d a history of hypochondria that wonders whether newfangled technology drives us crazier.A BODY MADE OF GLASS: A Cultural History of Hypochondria, by Caroline CramptonBritish national identity is built on the stiff upper lip, but the author Caroline Crampton, who lives in Merseyside, has allowed hers to quaver and curl, and it\u2019s a relief.At 17, Crampton was diagnosed with Hodgkin\u2019s lymphoma. Actually, when the doctor announced his findings, she did react with a stiff upper lip: stoic in the way that adolescents, who are still part children, can be before they are able to make sense of a situation. It was her mother who \u2014 quite understandably \u2014 fainted and slid off the chair.Crampton endured multiple courses of chemotherapy, a stem cell transplant and painful egg retrieval to maximize chances of preserving her fertility. Also understandably, she became in young adulthood anxious and vigilant about lumps, hair loss and other signs of bodily trouble.She is straightforward about identifying as a hypochondriac, although she understands that in modern times people like her are often stigmatized or disbelieved, as she writes in \u201cA Body Made of Glass,\u201d a beguiling new book about the condition, both individual and zeitgeisty.She seeks to reclaim the term, palpate its various meanings over time and show how porous the line between mental and physical health has always been. This occasions reacquaintance with humors, vapors, pallor and other archaic but picturesque medical concepts.\u201cA Body Made of Glass\u201d is named for a fascinating delusion of feeling \u201cfragile, brittle and extremely smashable\u201d that afflicted King Charles VI of France and the hero of a 1613 novella by Cervantes, and that, in Crampton\u2019s framing, serves as a metaphor for humanity\u2019s current predicament \u2014 maximum optimization, yet a lingering sense of affliction. (Before people started believing they were made of glass, incidentally, they fretted they might be made of pottery. Make mine Meissen!)We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5604,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5602","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5602"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5605,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5602\/revisions\/5605"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}