352 CURABILITY AND TREATMENT OF ANIMAL INSANITY. 



in the form of judicious nursing, the supply of proper diet 

 and warmth, and protection from all sources of physical 01 

 mental disturbance. 



In other animals, as in man, the evils or errors of fussy 

 nursing, or of continuous attentions, soon become patent. 

 The slightest disturbance sometimes of animals that have 

 recently become mothers, leads them not only to desert their 

 nests or young, but even to devour the latter. In such cases 

 the very simple and sensible treatment is to leave the poor 

 animals alone, to c let well alone.' 



Among other advantages of solitary confinement of the 

 animals, with patience and observation on the part of man, 

 in such cases as madness, suspected or reputed, would be the 

 important discovery 



a. That many reputedly rabid or rabietic dogs labour 

 really under temporary forms of ordinary in- 

 sanity, or of mere transient and removable 

 mental excitement ; and 



Z>. That such animals are quite harmless if properly 

 dealt with, speedily recovering composure and 

 good-temper under the genial influences of 

 quiet and kindness, of good feeding, and other 

 attentions to their creature comforts. 

 And the result of such a discovery would be the salvation 

 of much valuable dog life on the one hand, and the preven- 

 tion of, or recovery from, many cases of human hydrophobia 

 on the other. The innocuity of most cases of reputed mad- 

 ness in dogs, and the equal injustice, impolicy, and absurdity 

 of destroying animals merely suspected of rabies, cannot be 

 too soon or too fully made public, especially in districts 

 where hydrophobia is, or is said to be, prevalent in man. 



In a case of panphobia in a cavalry horse, cited by 

 Pierquin, the animal regained calmness and confidence on 

 becoming free : a circumstance that points to the propriety 

 or importance, in certain cases at least, on the one hand, of 

 not tethering, or confining, and on the other of inspiring 

 confidence, or of making all due attempts thereat, in the 

 treatment of those forms of insanity in which morbid fear 

 is a characteristic. For instance, in cases of fire in stables, 



