FORMS OF MENTAL DEFECT AND DERANGEMK\ 



the most familiar is melancholia, which is quite as common 

 as mania. Just as mania is frequently an exaggerated anger, 

 or the result thereof, so melancholia is generally an exag- 

 gerated grief, or its direct sequel. Grief and sorrow, in all 

 their degrees, with their culmination in melancholia, are 

 extremely common as the result of bereavements the loss of 

 master or mistress, mate or companion, or even their mere 

 temporary absence the loss, above all, of young. Melan- 

 cholia is common also in solitary animals, from the want of 

 companionship or society ; and in captive animals especially 

 monkeys in whom it is probably associated with incipient 

 or advanced tubercular pulmonary disease (Baird) . Varying 

 in profoundness or intensity, it is, as in man, or rather in 

 woman, a frequent result also of disappointed love (Pierquin) . 



One of the many kinds of melancholia is important as 

 illustrating a series of conditions that are sometimes causes, 

 sometimes forms of insanity, viz. nostalgia, or home-sickness. 

 It is most apt to occur in animals that show a strong natural 

 attachment to their home, their place of birth or up-bringing 

 such as the cat, and even the dog whose affection for 

 persons is supposed to be much stronger than for places. 

 Some dogs are as decidedly and morbidly home-sick as others 

 are love- sick, the victims of erotomania, or sexual insanity. 

 In these animals the home feeling is sometimes so strong 

 that attachment to a new master or abode becomes impos- 

 sible, a circumstance that is known to, and taken advantage 

 of by, the dog-stealers. According to Pierquin, nostalgia 

 sometimes accompanies grave cerebral lesion, in which case it 

 is to be regarded as secondary and symptomatic as a result, 

 therefore, of disease. In other cases it would appear to be 

 a form or kind, and in others a cause rather, of melancholia. 

 Dejection, despondency, depression of spirits, is a common 

 effect of removal from their native forests of various monkeys 

 such as the Titi (Cassell). But it does not appear that 

 such mental depression is of the nature of nostalgia. It 

 is more probably the mental accompaniment of serious or 

 morbid physical change. 



Certain animals have been described as possessing a na- 

 tural proneness or predisposition to melancholia, as having a 



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