CHAPTER III. 



CUBABILITY AND TREATMENT OP ANIMAL INSANITY. 



IN general terms it may be said that animal insanity is 

 curable or incurable, under the same circumstances as is that 

 of man ; that is to say, that acute cases of short duration, or 

 in their early stages, are, as a rule, curable, while in con- 

 firmed cases the chances of recovery diminish with the dura- 

 tion of the mental disorder. In other words, the treatment 

 of insanity in other animals, as in man, as was long ago 

 explained by Pierquin, is hopeful in proportion to its acuteness 

 or recentness. Thus, as in man, acute ephemeral mania is 

 the most readily curable form of insanity, so much so that 

 in a sense it cures itself the natural tendency being towards 

 spontaneous recovery if the animal is simply let alone. Were 

 this fact borne in mind, understood, or realised by drovers of 

 cattle, there would be no injudicious pursuit of so-called 

 crazed or infuriated cattle in our city streets ; no striking 

 of them when overtaken and brought to bay. In such cases 

 it is man himself, who by the absurdity of his conduct pro- 

 duces, maintains, or exaggerates in the animal the very 

 condition which he so much dreads, viz. the development of 

 furiosity of a maniacal type. 



Curability then is in proportion to acuteness, which again 

 implies recentness of attack. In cases where insanity de- 

 pends upon, or is determined by, lesions of the senses, 

 such as sight or hearing, or by organic disease of the brain 

 or its membranes, the curability of the mental disorder will 

 obviously depend on the curability or removability of its 

 physical cause. 



Animal insanity is in great measure curable : a statement 

 having an important practical bearing on the public dread- 



