INSANITY IN THE LOWEE ANIMALS. 37 



mental and bodily, than those of rural existence. But recent 

 statistical researches, and especially those of the Scottish 

 Board of Lunacy, bring out the fact that more is to be feared 

 from ignorance than from education, even weighted as the 

 latter is with insanitary conditions of life not more favourable 

 to mental than to bodily health. 



In judging of the relative liability to insanity in different 

 genera and species of animals, the same kind of fallacies 

 present themselves. We are too apt to suppose that to be 

 most common which simply comes most frequently within 

 our own ken. The susceptibility to madness is generally 

 supposed to be greatest in the dog, because probably 



1. He is the most intelligent and sensitive of the lower 

 animals. 



2. He resembles his master in the artificial, unhealthy 

 character of his habits ; while 



3. His structure is in many respects the same, or similar. 

 But the greater frequency of insanity in the dog may be 



only apparent because of his intimate association with man, 

 and his coming much more, therefore, under man's notice 

 than any other of the lower animals. On the other hand, in 

 Scotland at least, insanity is perhaps most familiar in the 

 ox, in the form of ephemeral mania. 



It is probable but it has yet to be proved that mental 

 derangement in the lower animals bears a certain proportion 

 or relation to superiority of type of mind, or of brain and 

 general nervous organisation ; in other words, that it is to be 

 looked for most frequently in dogs, horses, and other animals 

 of high breeding and fine nervous susceptibility. 



Madness, apparently of the character of human insanity, 

 has been described or referred to in the chimpanzee (Forbes), 

 horse (Levrat, Pierquin), elephant, dog and cat, cow and 

 bull, sheep and hen, and even in the ant (Latreille), and bee 

 (Figuier) . But the exact character of the ' madness ' in the 

 cases of these very different genera and species differs con- 

 siderably, though not correspondingly. In some cases it is 

 genuine insanity of the nature of that which occurs in man, 

 while in others we are left in doubt as to the precise cha- 

 racter of the so-called ' madness.' 



