
The French King Who Believed He Was Made of Glass - onychomys
https://daily.jstor.org/french-king-who-believed-made-glass/
======
schoen
Huh, this is discussed at the beginning of Descartes's _Meditations on First
Philosophy_ but I didn't realize it was such a widespread phenomenon in the
time leading up to it.

... nisi me forte comparem nescio quibus insanis, quorum cerebella tam
contumax vapor ex atra bile labefactat, ut constanter asseverent vel se esse
reges, cum sunt pauperrimi, vel purpura indutos, cum sunt nudi, vel caput
habere fictile, vel se totos esse cucurbitas, vel ex vitro conflatos; sed
amentes sunt isti, nec minus ipse demens viderer, si quod ab iis exemplum ad
me transferrem.

... unless maybe I would compare myself to some sort of madmen whose brains
have been weakened by such a persistent vapor of black bile that they
constantly claim either that they're kings (when they're very poor), or that
they're wearing purple (when they're naked), or that they have clay heads, or
that they're pumpkins, or that they're blown from glass; but these people are
crazy, and I wouldn't seem less mad myself if I applied some example from
their situation to my own.

