DEGENERACY OF MIND IN MAN. 17 



morbid appetite, in man and other animals, are sufficient 

 in amount and importance, however, to require a special 

 chapter. 



9. Rumination. Houzeau speaks of ( ruminant 5 men, and 

 I have myself had grass-eating human ruminators among 

 my hospital patients. 



10. Imitative impulse, but to a less extent usually than in 

 the idiot. Imitations of animal characteristics include low- 

 ing like the ox, crowing like the cock, barking and biting 

 like the dog, and so on. 



Bestial traits are developed also in certain human diseases 

 that do not belong to the category of insanity, though it is 

 really as phenomena of a secondary insanity that the said 

 animal peculiarities show themselves. This secondary insanity 

 might indeed well be called distinctively the bestial, feral or 

 theroid insanity, for instance, of hydrophobia. Thus in 

 human hydrophobia, especially in those spurious forms thereof 

 that are more common than the real ones, that are pro- 

 duced by, and probably consist of, morbid imagination act- 

 ing on a hyper-sensitive nervous system the victim who 

 believes that he has been bitten by a rabid dog, and so has 

 had his whole constitution impregnated with canine pro- 

 clivities, barks, snaps, and bites like a dog; while if he 

 thinks a rabid cat has been the instrument of his torture, he 

 mews, hisses and scratches. 



There are certain cases, moreover, in which there is no 

 proof of the presence of disease mental or nervous in which, 

 nevertheless, animal habits have been developed, for instance 

 in the case of the hermits of Mesopotamia mentioned by 

 Houzeau, who went on all fours, emitted cries, and herded 

 with cattle. The presumption is, however, that such cases 

 are really referable to delusional insanity. 



Even in the midst of the highest civilisation, under ex- 

 ceptional conditions such as those of war, and even in 

 ordinary circumstances, what are considered animal traits 

 in human character are by no means uncommon. These 

 include, unfortunately, some of the worst qualities, intellec- 

 tual or moral, of human nature some of its most degrading 

 vices ; such as so-called tiger-like ferocity or blood-thirst i- 



VOL. II. C 



