Florence Nightingale's tireless battle against death and disease during the Crimean War rendered her one of history's most famous hypochondriacs.
In 1857, the year after she returned from the Crimea, she took to her bed convinced that her life was hanging by a thread which could snap at any moment. It eventually did -- in 1910 when the founder of modern nursing was ninety years old!
[To be fair, many unusual illnesses (fibromyalgia and lupus, for example) are misdisgnosed as hypochondria. In any case, Nightingale managed to continue her life's work and establish the Nightingale School and Home for Nurses (in London) while restricted to her sick bed.]
[Florence, who traveled as far afield as the Crimea, always carried a pet owl in her pocket.]
Sources
Karnataka Quiz Association; Glenn Van Ekeren, Speaker`s Sourcebook II, p. 107
