Munchausen, Baron

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Munchausen, Baron the hero of a book of fantastic travellers' tales (1785) written in English by a German, Rudolph Erich Raspe. The original Baron Munchausen is said to have lived 1720–97, to have served in the Russian army against the Turks, and to have related extravagant tales of his prowess.

His name is used for Munchausen's syndrome, a mental disorder in which a person repeatedly feigns severe illness so as to obtain hospital treatment. Munchausen's syndrome by proxy is the term given to a mental disorder in which a person seeks attention by inducing or feigning illness in another person, typically a child.