INSANITY IN THE LOWER ANIMALS. 41 



It would appear as if a change of type had occurred in 

 animal insanity since the Middle Ages, and even since Pier- 

 quin's day. It would seem that there is now less furiosity or 

 acute mania and more of other forms of insanity. But there 

 is no very substantial ground for such an opinion. 



That there will, however, be a most decided change of 

 type when there is a change in man's treatment of the lower 

 animals in general, and of their insanity in particular ; when 

 it becomes generally known and accepted that other animals 

 besides man possess mind of the same kind as his ; that this 

 mind is subject to the same class of disorders, producible by 

 similar causes ; that similar treatment is called for as in the 

 case of human insanity a treatment which is now generally 

 spoken of as the humane system ; and that humanity to sub- 

 ject animals is man's best policy, even for his own selfish 

 ends I have no hesitation in predicting. When all those 

 sources of irritation or provocation are removed that are at 

 present the main causes of the development of furiosity, when 

 animals in the early and dangerous stages of mental disorder 

 are either left to themselves protected from annoyance or 

 gently and judiciously dealt with, I have little doubt that 

 acute, murderous, or homicidal mania, for instance, will be- 

 come less common, if it do not altogether disappear just as 

 the furious mania of the Hogarthian days of the old Bedlam 

 of London has become infrequent in man, as the result of 

 the change that has occurred during the last half-century in 

 popular opinion concerning the true nature of man's insanity 

 and its proper treatment. 



Of the relative frequency of occurrence of the different 

 forms of animal insanity nothing of a precise kind can at 

 present be said to be known. Mania and melancholia are 

 common, at least in their acute stage, because they are fre- 

 quently or generally suddenly developed. Other forms are 

 apparently or really less common, probably simply because 



1. Man does not take the trouble to look for them ; while 



2. He loses no time in ridding himself of animals that, by 

 reason of disability, mental or bodily, have ceased to be useful 

 or profitable to him. 



One of the many results of animal insanity including, 



