THE CONQUEST OF DISEASE 



The neurologists have studied and described 

 a disease condition, which has been designated 

 by the name, zoophilic psychosis, in which there 

 is an inordinate and exaggerated sympathy for 

 the lower animals often associated with delu- 

 sions that they are persecuted by man. It has 

 not exactly the qualities of an insanity, but it 

 is distinctly a psychasthenia or obsessive psy- 

 chosis. Curiously these cases display a sympa- 

 thy for suffering in animals while they show 

 decidedly less concern for human suffering. 

 They have a peculiar lack of proportion. This 

 is no unusual condition. Dana, 1 Raymond and 

 Janet have reported some striking cases. 

 Morel reports the case of a patient who would 

 faint at the sight of a sick animal but who did 

 not fail to rent his windows on the days of 

 executions, and allow his servants to go and 

 witness the executions. The cases observed in 

 America have been in persons who were found 

 in the ranks of "antivivisectionists" and kin- 

 dred cults. Dana describes them as cases of 

 fine feelings gone wrong, sometimes involun- 

 tarily, as the result of an overgrown sentimen- 

 tality, and sometimes as the result of habit 

 selfishly nursed into an unmoral mode of life. 



^Medical Record, March 6, 1909. 



158 



