Hypochondria refers to an unwarranted, excessive worry about having a serious illness.  Hypochondriacs often focus on one specific symptom such as stomach problems or muscle weakness.  They typically discredit the doctor’s healthy diagnosis, and resort to self-diagnosis, which often points them to serious, morbid illnesses.  The term hypochondria comes from the Greek hypo- below, and chondros referring to the cartilage of the breast bone.  When Hippocrates coined the term, mysterious illnesses were said to originate in the spleen, located in the upper abdomen below the breast bone (AKA the hypochondrium).  Next time I hear people publicly worrying about their spleen, I’m going to calmly tell them that they are hypochondriacs.  But they probably already figured that they were hypochondriacs.  Which raises an interesting question: do hypochondriacs embrace their hypochondria?