INSANITY IN THE LOWEK ANIMALS. 23 



Up to the present date, it may be confidently asserted, 

 especially as regards Britain, that animal insanity has not 

 been duly recognised because it has never been properly or 

 specially studied. When it is so, in the same way and to the 

 same extent, as human insanity has attracted special notice, 

 it will be found in all probability to be quite as common 

 under similar circumstances to be produced, that is to say, 

 by similar causes. And a true conception of the real nature 

 of the majority of cases of so-called 6 madness ' will go far to 

 revolutionise the present treatment of animals, both by vete- 

 rinarians and the general public. 



At present there is a great want of recorded cases, pro- 

 perly observed, described, and authenticated, of certain of the 

 forms of animal insanity ; and the young veterinarian could 

 not select a more promising field of research for his maiden 

 investigations. 



From the present absurd and inhuman practice of at once 

 shooting or poisoning animals that become for the moment 

 useless or dangerous to man ; from the comparative or utter 

 absence of hospital treatment for animals reputedly mad, 

 there is at present small opportunity of studying the pheno- 

 mena of animal insanity phenomena, nevertheless, a know- 

 ledge of which is of the utmost importance in relation to a 

 proper knowledge of human insanity. And hence there is 

 an apparent deficiency or infrequency of various forms of in- 

 sanity that would probably equally show themselves in other 

 animals, as in man, were opportunity for their development 

 on the one hand, and their study on the other, presented. 



At present there are hosts of points in the natural history 

 of animal insanity that cannot be determined in the absence 

 of the requisite data. Thus it is impossible to say whether 

 animal insanity is more frequent now than it was in the 

 Middle Ages. It has been asserted that it was then more 

 common ; but the greater frequency may have been and 

 indeed probably was merely apparent, in consequence of the 

 greater degree of attention then bestowed upon animals 

 that were reputedly bewitched or possessed. Nor can we 

 safely assert that insanity is absolutely more common among 

 domestic than wild animals, among town or drawing-room 



