Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: The Glass Delusion

Episode Date: September 23, 2017

This week, Dr. Sydnee and Justin delve into the strange story of the king who thought he was made of glass, and the many he might have convinced that they were too. Music: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers

Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books. One, two, one, two, three, four. I'm a man. We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out.

We pushed on through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around. Some medicines, some medicines that escalate my cop for the mouth. Wow. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Sal Bones, my little tour of Miss Guy, Admitis and I'm your co-host Justin McAroy. And I'm Sydney McAroy. Hey, Justin. Yes, Sid.

You know how, you know, whenever we're hanging out, like relaxing, we get, you know, an hour or so just to chill, watch some TV and be together. You know how you always look at me and say, Sid, I really want to know more about the history of French royalty in the 15th century.

No, Sid, I can't say I recall ever asking you that ever in our entire lives. I think I'm pretty sure that you've looked at me before and said, I don't feel like I know much about the royal family from that period or the 100 years war or. I know we've always taken the long way around with these intros, but I feel like you just lying is a new low.

I, I'm sorry. I apologize. It's okay. I forgive you. I just did. But I feel like you're trying to nudge me into a topic for our medical history podcast solbones. I can feel your hand nudging the small of my back closer to the precipice of edification. I couldn't think of an organic way where you would ask me about that or about kind of an interesting,

but for the most part gone medical condition that existed largely in 15th and 16th century Europe and Pretty much there's not much documentation of since I just couldn't see a way that you were gonna ask me about that No, I know there was no way around it But I think you did the best you could with what you're at. It's not in any video games. I bet what The the condition I'm talking about which is called the glass delusion. No. Skyrim has like swordsman of glass. Somebody's probably gonna tell me like,

what about the ones that were where everybody was glass? Keep it to yourself, nerdlinger. Is there a Zelda where everybody was glass? No, but I'm saying, like if I could recall that, sitting out would just say that. I'm saying like, so he's gonna be like, what about you said your there a Zelda where everybody was glass? No, but I'm saying, like if I could recall that, Sydney, I would just say that. I'm saying like, so he's gonna be like, what about you said your favorite video game was Glass-Rans? It's just stop.

Is that your favorite video game? Nope, Sydney, that's not a video game. Just tell me about dumb delusion. Well, first of all, thank you, Nuri, for recommending this topic. I had never heard of the Glass delusion, and I was very excited to learn about it, although I don't know, I don't know that it's one of the topics that I will apply to my daily medical practice. So let's let me take you back to Charles VI of France.

Let's go Sid. He was king from 1380 to 1422. He was initially called Charles the beloved. Oh, that's nice. Yeah. He assumed the throne at age 11. So it's hard to, I mean, you're kind of automatically beloved when you're 11, right? I actually cannot think of many 11 year olds. I've enjoyed especially. Oh, I don't think if you're the 11 year old king, like everybody instantly is like, what a jerk. Yeah, but I also think that there's probably something like, uh, are we screwed? Like, can we all agree that he's 11? Are we all? He actually, he actually, uh, part of the problem was that all of his uncles kind of ran the country even though he was king. So like, I like a Valor. Yeah, sort of like that. Like a grand council kind of thing.

Okay. And they weren't very good at it and they made a lot of bad decisions. But then he brought in some really important advisors and kind of got things under control and seemed to be headed in a direction to be a really wonderful transformative king. Sounds like in this situation, they were the ones who weren't ready to rule. That's a great Atlanta Vivalo reference. If anybody enjoys that program, that was just for you.

There's a, I guarantee there's some parents out there right now. Who will have it stuck in their head? I know I'm ready to rule. Anyway, so things seemed to be going pretty well until his 20s. So in his 20s and 1392 to be exact, he didn't seem to be doing very well. He was, it was noted that he seemed kind of hyper in his actions. He couldn't stop doing things, talking. He seemed feverish. So the way

he was described in a lot of older writings, just meaning that I knew what that meant. No, picked a word. They didn't mean an actual fever. They just meant he seemed not quite like he was in he was in this world. And he was moving very quickly and making maybe not the best decisions. And in the midst of this, he decided to lead a military expedition to capture an assassin who had attempted to murder his friend. Wow, that's a very active role for a king. You think he'd have people for that? Yeah, that's what I would have thought too, but maybe back then,

there was just like the king was in on the horse. No, it is in your 20s though. You start trying to hunt down every assassin that comes across your path. So, and you're invincible. So his friend, Olivia Declison, they attempted to assassinate and attempted to murder him. And then the Duke of Brittany was hiding the assassin,

like being kept there. I don't know what their relationship was. I don't know what the, I don't know if money was exchanged, some sort of favor. Classic Duke. They just hated each other. Maybe. They're just all these people, as I read through,

like the history of the monarchy, it's just people just hate each other sometimes. It's like Game of Thrones, right? It's like, this is what Game of Thrones is about. Oh, there you go. Now you got it. Okay, that I get it now. Now you understand the entire plot of Game of Thrones.

Anyway, so he's writing to kill this assassin. He's got his little group of men that he's bringing with him, not the entire army, I'm assuming. That would be for Harvey. And as they're writing through the forest, a man comes running up to his horse, like grabs on to the saddle and looks at the king. He's a man who obviously has leprosy.

He's in tattered clothing. He was terrified and yelling and kind of scared everybody, freaked everybody out and said, you need to turn back good king. There's a traitor among you, there's, you will be betrayed, turn back. This is a very, I just wanna say, Sid and I don't recognize this enough. This is a very,

good framing. A lot of the stories that we do don't have this kind of nice framing. It's like very visual. It's very, in the moment, very cinematic. I'm really enjoying the story. Thank you. I'm sorry I broke the flow of the story to mention it, but I just wanted to make sure I called it out. It's very evocative, and I'm really enjoying myself here. I have it a great time. Well, I'm glad. I do, I do have to be clear. I did not write this story or

make up this story. I just am telling it. It's true Word episode two oh two did you just clarify For me these stories have been nonfiction the entire time because I was surprised Double cross. I know I play kind of a Kind of a goof stir on this show, but that would be quite a misconception on my part So the soldiers push the man away. But they didn't arrest him. So he kind of just tagged along behind everybody on horseback, yelling. If my people, if my court of people is not there to keep people with

leprosy from a costing me, what exactly are they being paid to do? That's a good question. Job one. Yeah. Job one. So, so this guy's kind of yelling, they're, they're continuing on their journey. The King already, as I mentioned, was in this kind of unusual state of behavior. And, and things were getting intense. And as you can imagine, as things got more and more intense, the King was getting more and more agitated. And then one of his pages accidentally dropped, like a helmet or a sword,

something conflicting to count, something loud that clanged a lot, dropped something, there was a big loud clang, and the king just snapped and began to attack his own men, whoo, calling them traders. He actually, he began swinging his sword around, actually killed several of his men. Tag. And then started to attack his own brother, Louis. Who I bet put him down. No, he was tackled by his men at this point.

Yeah, like that's that's helpful, man. That's the king comes to you the sword. You're gonna do. You try to figure yourself. The other haters will be like, uh, no, you know, I'm assuming that's why he got so many before. Yeah. I was out of the unknown way to die. Like you're just kind of standing like, well, I guess I should just go. Here comes. So he was subdued by his men and he went into a brief coma like state. And then he kind of came out of it. But this was the beginning of a lot of similar

episodes and and looking back on this now, applying kind of the beginning of a lot of similar episodes and looking back on this now, applying kind of the lens of medical history to this now, this was probably the beginning of some underlying psychiatric diagnoses that they would never have been aware of at this time. Right. Maybe, like it's been theorized before that maybe it was something like schizophrenia. This could have been, that would make sense for his age and the way it, the onset and things like that. There's also some mention that he was sick right before this happened. So then the thought is, was this some sort of residual brain injury from a meningitis type illness or something like that? Right. So either way, clearly something changed at this point in his life. And it began to have these kinds of

episodes where he would sometimes he would forget who his family was. Sometimes he would just refuse to bathe or change his clothes for weeks at a time. Various ways that it would kind of manifest and then he would seem more like himself for a while and then it would come back. On a side note, during one of these episodes, when he was refusing to bathe,

his doctor's plan to treat him for it was this is a good one. To have a lot of his like have a lot of the men in the castle, the men who worked there, kind of hide in rooms where he was going to come in and then jump out and scare him when he entered the room to scare him out of it. Wow. I don't know. That's so buck wild. Like, startle him from his. Like, startle him out of his insanity.

Yes. Like, you just spook him a little bit and then he'll be like, you're right. And they record that at one point this worked and I, I do not believe, yes, I do not believe that that work. Nice try history. No, it didn't like. That's the one thing that I think could be the worst thing to do is just jump out and scare someone like that.

You shouldn't do that to anybody. Let alone someone with delusions that there are people trying to get them. Are you kidding me? Exactly. So you're probably wondering at this point, well, okay, where does the glass come into the picture? Right. This is one of the most notable episodes that he had.

It was actually written about by the Pope at the time, Pope Pius, that he began to have the fixed illusion, the meaning of a false belief that he could not go of, that he was made of glass. It is entire body was made of glass. He became certain that if he bumped into something or someone, or if he sat down or or something, or someone, or if he sat down or, you know, went to lie down too quickly or too hard on a firm surface, anything like that, that he could just shatter. And he thought Bruce Willis was out to get him some break old powers. It was the kids. They called me Mr. Glass.

I got that reference. That was a great, yeah. You were right on it. I was my Mr. Glass. I got that reference. That was a great, yeah. You were right on it. I was on it. With a great, great, Samuel O'Lijaxon impression. Two for the prize of one. You can imagine if you're reading articles

about the glass delusion on the internet that lots of people like to post pictures of Mr. Glass with this. Yeah. Just to, I don't know, emphasize that. Let me feel unoriginal now, Sydney. Thought I was kind of the real bone Just when it was on my mind, okay

So he also he went to the extent of having his tailor so Iron rods into his clothing With the thought that then if he ran into something or bumped into somebody or something like that that those would protect his body exoskeleton. Exactly. Exactly. And then he also would wrap himself in many, many blankets. They're like, they're paintings of him wrapped in tons of blankets when he went to like lie down or painting. I'm assuming not post portraits because I would think that like, let, hold on, put

the brush away. Well, let me take off my blankets. There was this one or it was a tapestry. Either way, it was a depiction of him and he was like lying in a bed and if this is not like a bunch of blankets or if these were like typical king robes, they don't they don't make sense to me. It looks like something that would be difficult. It looks like a bunch of blankets and like a bunch of men standing around the bed,

guarding it. So there you go. I mean, that's what it looked like, like a depiction of that. Even to the extent like where if he was, he was particularly afraid of his bottom, his rear end, his buttocks, his glass butt, his butt, shattering.

He was particularly afraid of that happening. And so he would wrap his, like, especially around his waist and his butt and blankets every time he went to sit down anywhere because he was very afraid. And this is actually, as we kind of talk about this, not an uncommon delusion to have, like the specific fear. The delusion is very uncommon. That specific fear within it is not that your battle break. Yes. I did not know that.

So as a result, trying not to chuckle because there's, I, I understand as a, as a someone who lives with mental illness, as well, and has spoken a lot about the need to talk more publicly about that and destigmatize it. I'm trying very hard not to laugh at the King who's afraid he would break his glass, but it's very hard for me to do that. So I'm sharing my struggle with you all so you know where I'm coming from right now. Thank you for sharing, Justin. Okay, I just shared my struggle. So as a result, he would stand in his room most of the time. He tried to hold very still. He would sit there motionless for hours to most of the time. He tried to hold very still.

He would sit there motionless for hours to protect himself from breaking. He didn't let people touch him. His wife wasn't allowed to touch him. They didn't have a sat again. But they did have a lot of children just on a side note. Like 12 kids or something, like a ton of kids. So.

Gently. And as a result of this, he became known as Charles the mad instead of Charles the beloved. And as you can imagine with his struggles with untreated, undiagnosed, ununderstood mental illness, he had a lot of trouble being an effective ruler. Yeah, I can imagine. From there forward, I just want to side note as I kept reading stories about Charles and his, you know, his delusion and his illness and his other issues, a story kept popping up that had very little to do with his illness, but I just think is a crazy story.

So the king and queen at one point were having a fancy party. There was like somebody got married and they were having this big party. And the king and some of his like dudes, some of his guys, went and dressed as wild men. Wild men were like a specific thing. They were in like, they were some sort of demonic creature folklore at the time. So it was an actual thing to be a wild man. So they went and they put on these clothes made of linen that were soaked in resin and then covered in flacks. That was really long. So it would look like wild hairy stuff all over them. And they put it on and they came bursting into the ballroom, into the party and sort of dancing around, scaring everybody, freaking everybody out. It was a joke. Everybody was supposed to laugh

whatever. Until the King's brother, Louis, who he had tried to kill earlier, came walking up to one of them with a torch to stick it in his face and get a better look to try to figure out who it was. And of course, they're covered in resin. So he set the guy on fire. And then like three other guys got set on fire as a result of this. Uh-huh. And this is now known as the ball of the burning men. And that's where a burning man got his start. No. Listen, listen, y'all, I'm very sorry you got burned.

Your king got told by somebody with lips, you see, that people were out to get him, and now I think his butt is made of glass. Maybe we don't need to add extra levels of fantastic adventures to a ball. Maybe you should just calm down and wear a nice t-shirt and some khakis and maybe not dress up like animal from the muppets and try to herang him and his guests because he's skittish and he doesn't need that business. He was the king was one of them. What? The king was one of the wild men. I would never have agreed to that. King Charles was one of them. What? The king was one of the wild men. I would never have agreed to that. No way. The king Charles was one of them.

And that's what, there's this whole other layer of intrigue because then there's the thought was Louis doing it on purpose because he knew the king was one of them and he was trying to assassinate his brother to take the throne. Whoa. Actually, actually the thought was to take his woman. Oh, okay. They thought he was after the queen. Now that's the thing. I think he did have an affair with the queen later

But I thought he was after the queen and so there's a thought like maybe he was trying to kill the king anyway That has nothing to do with this his glass delusion. I just think that's a An extra little very interesting story so about King Charles That feels like the end of the story about King Charles So that is the story of it that is the end of the story about King Charles But That is the story of the, that is the end of the story about King Charles, but it is not the end of the glass delusion, which would persist for about 200 years before it kind of vanishes from medical literature.

Well, let me hear about it. I'm gonna tell you more about it, but first let's go to the billion department. Let's go. The medicines, the medicines that ask you lift my car before the mouth. So Sid, you were gonna tell me, apparently this delusion continued to persist. So the strange thing about it is that it almost sort of spread as if it was contagious,

especially among nobility and then the upper class. We experience with the dancing flag, right? It's very similar to that where there's no reason that this should be contagious in the infectious disease sense. But for some reason, and you know, we've talked about this before actually with the anal fistula story of we're an official. The King King who had the an official who, you know, they got very trendy to have an unofficial as to people who pretend they had one, even if they didn't. So part of that is that if royalty had any kind of issue, everybody was talking about it.

Everybody's always talking about the royal family, right? We don't have one, but we talk about, you know, other peoples. Yeah. Because we're jealous, I guess. Yeah. Anyway, so you started to see it pop up among other members of the nobility, specifically, there was a French prince who was recorded soon after to have. The French prince of Belair.

You say? I wouldn't, I wouldn't say. I wouldn't. Who was recorded to have the same delusion by the court physician who took care of everybody. And basically the doctor said, we'll you should probably sleep on straw all the time and keep stay on it as much as you can. Because part of what makes this difficult to treat is that if you're dealing with royalty and especially if we're living in

a time period where said royalty could look at you and say, oh, you don't think I made of glass off with your head. Then you get some of the physicians who are kind of just saying, you're right, you are made of glass. Let's come up with ways to protect you. Right. Without really understanding what was going on or attempting to do anything helpful. Exactly. Because they're too afraid to contradict them. I made a glass, okay, you're the king, you're the prince, you say so, we'll go with that.

This particular French prince was cured when a fire, I think, on his straw mat that he was stuck on all the time, made him second guess the whole plan. So maybe he wasn't class. Maybe I'm not after all because the straw seems like a bad idea. And then you start to see other accounts pop up again. What was he sleeping on before that? This is less flammable. Yeah, like I don't know. A bed? A bed? I don't know why straw is better than I mean, the beds were probably filled with straw, right? Yeah, they're bed? I don't know why straw is better than, I mean, the beds were probably filled with straw, right? Yeah, they're all flammable.

I don't understand the standard. So other accounts started to pop up of other noble men who had this delusion and scholars. It was specifically associated with like really intelligent people who would get melancholy and then begin to believe they were made of glass. Melancholy being kind of a catch all term for probably depression by today's standards, but also just sadness or kind of disillusionment. You know, it was one of those things where it doesn't exist today. We don't diagnose people with melancholy. Right.

So it meant many things that we would identify today. Some people believe they were made of glass as King Charles did. Some felt they were trapped in a glass bottle. Some believe they were very specific glass items like I am a glass urinal. Sorry, back up a glass urinal. Glass urinal was like a small flask. The APN2? You could.

You could. I mean, I can't be in the lava thing city. Yeah, like a small flask that you could into? You could pee. You could. Yeah. I mean, I can pee into a lot of things, isn't it? Yeah. I guess I'm all flasked that you could pee into. Or an oil lamp. That was a specific delusion that some people had. So not only am I made of glass, but I am a glass object.

That's so interesting. You would think, and again, I'm no mental health expert, but you would think that that would be... think. And again, I'm no mental health expert, but you would think that that would be if someone was not already prone to, and this is what you're saying, right? These aren't necessarily people who have no any amount of psychosis or mental illness. It seems like that would be a very easy thing to treat. Not necessarily. Now, like I said, there was this association with this term melancholy. So did a lot of these people actually have underlying severe depression or something, bipolar disorder, something else, possibly, probably some of them, but maybe not all of them.

Right. Because some people didn't have any other symptoms until they just began to believe they were made of glass. Many initially centered around like glass extremities. My arms are glass, my legs are glass. My legs are glass, or my feet are glass, was a very common fear. But later accounts included things like my heart is made of glass, or my heart is a song. It's just occurred to me. Yeah, it is also a song. It is also a song. You hear also something. You've got the idea. I don't think so. Probably not. And my chest is made of glass, so specific fears or my head. Fears that your head was made of glass, that your head was too heavy for you to hold

up, so it was going to fall off. Went along with that. That was kind of similar to the glass delusion. My head's going to fall off and shatter. I can't hold my head up. If I stand up, it's going to tilt to the side until I fall over those kinds of fears. Because of the glass.

There was one physician again who wrote another account of a patient who specifically had the delusion that it was just his buttocks that were made of glass. Nothing else. Yeah. Only his rear end. And so he spent all all day, all night with a pillow attached to his butt. It was just that that was made of glass. This physician claimed to have healed him by spanking him.

And then when he said did that hurt and the patient said yes, he said then it must be made of flesh because if it was glass, that wouldn't hurt. It is thought that this was anecdotal exaggeration on the part of the physician and probably not completely true. And maybe some of the earliest medicinal spanking, probably. Right, right. That is opposed to all of the current medicinal spanking. Right. This is the, you're probably wondering

where the bedrock of medicinal spanking came from. And here we are. Please don't spank anyone. Princess Alexandra Amole of Bavaria had a very, what was it? Amole. Okay. I just want to show.

Can you hold yourself back? Mm-hmm. Developed a very specific glass delusion in her 20s. She was really interesting. She was a writer. She was a translator of stories to different languages. She spent tons of time publishing books, translations, and writing stories. And she probably also had some underline mental illness. There was some documented incidents of her like compulsively cleaning things and needing everything to be very clean all the time and kind of

having that obsession. And there's also some documentation that she would only wear white because it was cleaner. She thought it was a cleaner. So there probably is some other condition that was underlying this. But she came to believe that she had swallowed a glass grand piano when she was a child and that it could break it any time. And so she had to be very careful how she moved through the world because this glass piano inside her could shatter at any moment. You know, being a parent is hard, but I think if you're inattentive enough to let your child swallow a glass grand piano,

you probably need to hang up your spurs. I think that you have gone a, a, a, a, a rye. It she was noticed it. They, they died. They caught, they figured it out because she was walking through doorway sideways and someone in the, in like the castle, noticed it instead. Are you or why are you walking like that?

God, you know, it's it's I. It's just a great reminder of like I'm. This stuff is it sounds silly to us, but it's like. Imagine trying to live that way. I think the thing there's the reason it's sort of bumping for me or not bumping, I don't know the thing I'm struggling with when I, as we're talking about this, is like, how do you draw the line between people who, I mean, obviously this is a different case, but like, how do you draw the line between people who do have some sort of underlying

mental illness and people who are just, I don't know, trying to be odd or fashionable because when these things happen in these waves like this, it starts to set off alarm bells a little bit for me that like maybe we're not just talking about mental illness. Well, there's some thoughts on what we could be talking about that I'm going to tell you. Alright, well, I'll end up here. But again, a lot of this is just.

I don't want anybody to get mad at me for having a little fun of these people's expense I'm going to tell you. All right, well, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I don't mean like language is in English or French, I mean language as in medical language, the way we talk about conditions and diagnose things, obviously is completely different now. So there's not an easy corollary to what exactly did this person have, what was wrong with them, or did they have any condition at all? Did they just, the king had this delusion, so... Because as we said, people pretended to have anal

fistulas, so that's not outside the realm of possibility. Some theorized that Chikovsky may have had this, because he wrote once of a fear that his head would fall to the side and fall off while he was conducting, and that he would hold his chin while he was conducting to combat this. But I don't know if it was specifically the glass delusion. There's just been some theories, you know, theorizing. The majority of cases of this occurred between the 14th and 16th century. There have been a couple recorded since then in the 1800s, a couple of women who were institutionalized, who were, people weren went looking for this and specifically interviewed asking these questions.

And a couple of women were identified who thought maybe their legs or feet were made of glass, but not really widespread, certainly, like it was previously. There was a case in 1964, supposedly, where a psychiatrist interviewed a young man who felt he was made of glass. But when he talked about what his feeling was, like, why do you think you're made of glass? Tell me what that's like. It was more like, I feel like I'm transparent and that sometimes people see me and sometimes they don't.

And sometimes they're just looking through me to what's beyond. And I am not visible. But it wasn't the same. You know, it wasn't that necessarily that fear of shattering. It was more the fear that I don't exist and I do exist at the same time. So there have been many stories written about it. By the way, you'll find this used a lot in fiction, especially fiction that came soon after the time period when it was most prevalent.

Like, Cervantes wrote The Glass Lawyer, which was completely about a man who had the glass delusion. So you can find these kind of like poetry and philosophical writings and stories about it. And like I said, they're scattered reports in more recent years of possibly the same thing. But not not at all like it used to be. There's been some discussion like could you see a resurgence of this? And I'll tell you why. So when we start to wonder what in the world was going on, one, this was probably a manifestation of some underlying

mental illness that they didn't understand at the time. Like I said, Charles VI probably had schizophrenia. Probably, I'm not saying for sure, I don't know, but probably. I wonder if you're, if part of this is, you know, the connection between anxiety and depression, what have you? I wonder if like the brain does so many things to compensate.

So many weird things to compensate. I wonder if like if we didn't have the language to talk about anxiety and depression that we do now, like your brain probably would cook up things that were seem a lot hotter. That was terrible. And would make sense at this time. Yeah, some way of processing the information. your brain probably would cook up things that were seem a lot otter to us. That were tangible and would make sense at this time. Yeah, some way of processing the information.

That makes a lot of sense. The idea of mental illness was kind of vague. It's not like the idea that it is a thing was hard at the time. People didn't understand that, let alone what that meant or what that felt like. Many, like I said, many of these patients were noted to have what they called melancholia. This would probably be depression in most cases,

but could have been other things. And then specifically when you talk about royalty, there was this big fear of being harmed or dying, being poisoned, being assassinated, that persisted among royalty. They were constantly being scrutinized for their ability to perform their royal duties, for their ability to perform their royal duties, for their ability to produce an air. I mean, their physical well-being, their sexual lives,

everything was under a magnifying glass. And so this could create a lot of fear and anxiety, along with the pressure of ruling a country. And so, you know, maybe this is why you see this delusion more so among royalty because they get this sense that they are very fragile, that they are something that everyone is constantly watching and checking and keeping account of to make sure they're okay, and you begin to feel very fragile, because there's so many threats towards you as well. So maybe that was part of it. They also had no privacy. And then you also, a lot of historians will make the point that glass was actually, especially transparent glass, was relatively new at this point in history to Europe. This would have been a time where more and more was finally

being ordered and only rich people probably would have had it like royalty. So you start to see this kind of interest in glass as this kind of exotic, exciting, expensive, luxury material. So there's this association with that. And there was something almost magical about it still, even though people knew it wasn't. It was almost kind of connected to alchemy in a way. What is this amazing thing that's trying to carry?

So it's trying to be cheap and kind's transparent? Glass was very trendy. And we see this that delusions can be centered throughout history around things that are seemingly miraculous substances that came about at the same time. There was a concrete delusion that followed its introduction, where people believe they were made of concrete for a while. After the Cold War, we saw the rise in this delusion that you were being bugged, that the government was watching you, that they could hear your thoughts, that there were transmitters somewhere in your house, that we're going to, that kind of delusion has only grown with technology. As we have more technology that watches us more closely, we see more and more of that kind of delusion

among people who suffer from delusions. So, the idea is, could we see another glass delusion? Because our lives today feel very transparent. We have no privacy. So, are you, are you producing a trend? A hot take? Come back for the last solution. These are just these are just like fun things that I think people who think about such things like to write about on the internet. I haven't I haven't seen this. Nobody's writing about seeing this commonly in modern times. Seems to be just one of those things that a medical condition that occurred at a very fixed point in history

and for the most part kind of vanished afterwards. That is going to do it for us folks. This week we hope you have enjoyed yourself. Thank you to the maximum fun network for having us a part of their extended podcasting family. And can I just say by the way that I talked about the princess who thought she swallowed the glass grand piano stuff you missed in history, blasted an episode about just that. Oh, if you're interested in hearing more. We want to say some folks in us, some stuff for the PO box. Thanks to Morgan for the cuddly poppy Joe and Sarah and Declan sent some books, Carrie sent her friends book Dana Dustin Stephanie sent Charlie shirts and bottle openers. So thank you so much. Thank you all for that. Thank you to Max Fun. I said that already. Thanks to taxpayers for letting us use their song medicines as the intro and outro of our program. And thank you to you so much for listening.

If you get a chance, please go to iTunes and rate and subscribe to our show. And that's what's wrong. Did you hit the mic with your cup? I hit the mic with my water cup, sorry. Hey, that happens. Just trying to get that water in. Luckily, it's made of plastic. So until next week, my name is Justin McAroy. I'm Sydney McAroy. So always don't drill a hole in your head. the The Dead Pilot Society podcast brings you hilarious comedy pilots that were never made

featuring actors like Aubrey Plaza, Andy Richter, Paul Lufthomkens, John Hodgman, Adam Scott, Molly Shannon, Busy Phillips, Tom Lennon, Anna Camp, Laurie Metcalf, Alicia Day, Michaeline Black, Adam Savage, Paul Shear, Ben Schwartz, Skylar Astin, May Whitman, Josh Malina, Ben Feldman, Colbeyer, Jason Ritter, Sarah Chalk, Steve A.G., Jane Levy, Allison Tomman, Danielle Nicolette, Casey Wilson, Anority, Lorraine Newman, June Diane Raphael, Kurnichipka, Ed Week, Zach Knight, and Kerry Kenny Silver, John Ross Maui, Jamie Dan Bojan, Bojan Varnie, Alexander Forreston, Emmeral, Smagore, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, EW, E you