i8z THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



relates that at Crema, Italy, in 1804, a mad wolf descended from the 

 mountains and bit not only a vast number of animals, but thirteen per- 

 sons besides, of whom nine perished of hydrophobia. This peculiar au- 

 dacity of the rabid wolf, and the fact that a human being suffering from 

 the disease often imagines himself personally identified in some man- 

 ner with the animal that bit him, were doubtless largely concerned in 

 the maintenance of this superstition at a period when, as Lecky ob- 

 serves, the air was surcharged with the supernatural. But, in fact, 

 this fable may be traced back to mythological ages, and the existence 

 of the "we re-wolf" has been attested by Herodotus, Pliny, Strabo, 

 Virgil, Ovid, and other ancient authors. Most of us remember the 

 story recounted in Ovid's " Metamorphoses," of Lycaon, King of Arca- 

 dia, who entertained Jupiter with human flesh, in order to prove his 

 omniscience, and was punished by having all of his sons, save one, and 

 himself, transformed into wolves : 



" In vain he attempted to speak ; from that very instant 

 His jaws were bespattered with foam, and he only thirsted 

 For blood as he ranged among flocks and panted for slaughter." 



There are probably few countries in the world where some form of 

 this superstition has not existed, but it has raged especially in places 

 infested with wolves in the Jura, in Russia, in Ireland (where, ac- 

 cording to Camden, the inhabitants of Ossory were said to become 

 wolves every seven years), in the wooded districts of Germany, 

 France, Italy, Greece, and Turkey regions where lupine madness 

 has been particularly prevalent. Olaus Magnus, a writer of the mid- 

 dle ages, relates that in Prussia, Livonia, and Lithuania, although the 

 inhabitants suffered much from the ravages of wolves among their 

 cattle, they regarded such inroads as of little consequence compared 

 with the ferocious attacks of were-wolves. He says, " On the feast of 

 the Nativity of Christ, at night, such a multitude of wolves trans- 

 formed from men gathered together in a certain spot, arranged among 

 themselves, and then spread to. range with wondrous ferocity against 

 human beings and those animals which are not wild." Fincelius in- 

 forms us that, in 1542, there were such a great number of Were-wolves 

 about Constantinople that a special expedition was organized against 

 them, and the sultan, accompanied by his guard, left the city and 

 slew one hundred and fifty. A French judge, named Boguet, about 

 the end of the sixteenth century, devoted himself especially to lycan- 

 thropes, of whom he burnt a multitude, and afterward wrote a treatise 

 on the subject. 



Among the stupid popular ideas prevailing at the present time 

 with regard to a mad dog is the belief that persons, who may have 

 been bitten by the animal a long time previously and when it was 

 healthy, are in danger of developing hydrophobia upon its subsequent 

 appearance in the dog. This notion would seem almost too ridiculous 



