Glass delusion
Glass delusion is an external manifestation of a psychiatric disorder recorded in Europe mainly in the late Middle Ages and early modern period. People feared that they were made of glass "and therefore likely to shatter into pieces".
Delusion
In the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, glass became a valuable commodity. It was regarded as a magical alchemical object. Associated with fragility and luxury, glass influenced the way noblemen of early Europe perceived their esteemed positions in society. This fixation on a novel material contributed to the manifestation of the delusion. Edward Shorter, a historian of psychiatry from the University of Toronto, attributes the rise of the delusion in 17th-century Europe to the novelty of glass, stating that "throughout history, the inventive unconscious mind has pegged its delusions on to new materials and technological advances of the age."Concentration of the glass delusion among wealthy and educated social classes allowed modern scholars to associate it with a wider and better described disorder of melancholy.
Contemporary accounts
's The Anatomy of Melancholy touches on the subject in the commentary as one of many related manifestations of the same anxiety:Miguel de Cervantes based one of his short novels, The Glass Graduate, on the delusion of the title subject, an aspiring young lawyer named Tomás Rodaja. The protagonist of the story falls into a grave depression after being bedridden for six months subsequent to being poisoned with a purportedly aphrodisiac potion. He claims that, being of glass, his perceptions are clearer than those of men of flesh and demonstrates by offering witty comments. After two years of illness, Rodaja is cured by a monk; no details of the cure are provided except that the monk is allegedly a miracle-maker.
The Dutch poet Constantijn Huygens wrote in Costly Folly of its subject:
French philosopher René Descartes wrote Meditations on First Philosophy, using the glass delusion as an example of an insane person whose perceived knowledge of the world differs from the majority. In An Essay Concerning Human Understanding when proposing his celebrated model of madness, John Locke also refers to the glass delusion.
In modern times, the glass delusion has not completely disappeared, and there are still isolated cases today. "Surveys of modern psychiatric institutions have only revealed two specific cases of the glass delusion. Foulché-Delbosc reports finding one Glass Man in a Paris asylum, and a woman who thought she was a potsherd was recorded at an asylum in Merenberg." Andy Lameijn, a psychiatrist from the Netherlands, reports that he has a male patient suffering from the delusion in Leiden.
German alchemist Johann Joachim Becher had a fascination with glass delusion. In iarchive:johjoachimibecch00bech, he wrote that he discovered a way of turning dead human bodies into glass. However, Becher's claim was not true.