446 



RECREA TION. 



responsible subjects, and the swarm is in- 

 augurated. 



Sometimes animals seem to be fully- 

 aware of their mental ailments, and show 

 chagrin and sorrow when their condition 

 leads them to make abnormal exhibitions of 

 themselves. A very intelligent and high- 

 bred English fox-terrier, the property of 

 my brother, developed epilepsy during the 

 last year of his life. He would accompany 

 his owner to the football field where he 

 would be overtaken, sometimes, by his mal- 

 ady and fall down in convulsions. As soon 

 as he recovered consciousness and noticed 

 the boys laughing at him, he would hang 

 his head, tuck his tail between his legs, and 

 sneak away to the outskirts of the field, 

 where he would remain until his master was 

 ready to return home. This behavior on 

 the part of the dog occurred frequently and 

 was noticed and commented on by everyone 

 who witnessed it. Another feature of 

 this animal's malady brings it very near in- 

 deed to the phenomena of epilepsy as we 

 observe them in human beings. Frequent- 

 ly at the moment of seizure the dog would 

 utter a peculiar and distressing cry, which, 

 in quality and character, closely resembled 

 the stifled scream so often uttered by the 

 human victims of this disease when seized 

 with an epileptic cataclysm. 



Snakes, when exuviating, sometimes have 

 attacks of acute mania or frenzy. On one 

 occasion I witnessed the actions of a cop- 

 perhead (Ancistrodon contortrix) which was 

 about to shed its skin. This snake showed, 

 plainly, that it was the victim of furiosity. 

 It would draw itself into a coil and strike 

 furiously at the surrounding bushes, the 

 ground; in fact, at everything and any- 

 thing. It would race rapidly, to and fro, 

 about a spot 10 or 12 feet in diameter, or, 

 would lie extended, beating the ground 

 with its tail. This lasted for several hours, 

 until the creature became completely ex- 

 hausted. I finally killed it, but 'have no 

 doubt, if I had allowed it to live, it would 

 have regained its normal mental equilib- 

 rium as soon as it had thrown off its old 

 skin. 



Another fact, which demonstrates that 

 the intellectual faculties of the lower an- 

 imals are the same in kind as those of man, 

 is that temporary as well as permanent de- 

 rangements of mental continuity may be 

 produced in the former as well as in the lat- 

 ter by and through the agencies of drugs, 

 diseases, injuries, etc. Thus, many of the 

 lower animals easily acquire a love for al- 

 coholic beverages and readily and speedily 

 become confirmed inebriates. The con- 

 tinuous indulgence, by such creatures, in 

 alcoholic drinks begets disease and they be- 

 come veritable dipsomaniacs. 



A dog of my acquaintance, owned by a 

 saloon-keeper in St. Louis, Mo., learned to 

 turn the spigot of the beer-keg, thus allow- 

 ing the beer to flow into the drip-tub be- 



neath. He would then drink until he could 

 hold no more. Normally, this dog had a 

 very peaceable disposition, but, " when in 

 his cups," as his master often declared, " he 

 was a holy terror and would fight anything 

 from a pismire to an elephant." This an- 

 imal died of alcoholic apoplexy. 



Animals exceedingly low in- the scale of 

 life become intoxicated when alcohol is ad- 

 ministered to them, plainly showing, by 

 their actions, that they are drunk. Says 

 Romanes, the famous naturalist and biol- 

 ogist: " A tipsy jelly fish rolled about in 

 the water just like the staggering of a 

 drunken man, and this was followed by 

 torpidity, or a state of complete drunken- 

 ness, from which nothing could arouse it. 

 In the course of a few hours it began to re- 

 cover, and eventually recovery was com- 

 plete." By exercising great care in the 

 amount of the dose of alcohol administered. 

 I have succeeded in making actinophryans 

 (minute, microscopic animalcules very 

 much lower in the scale of animal life than 

 the medusa or jelly fish) dead drunk. They 

 having passed through all the gradations of 

 inebriety, from mere increased excitability 

 to complete torpor. By the addition of 

 fresh water I have restored them again to 

 their normal condition. 



Birds often become drunkards and fre- 

 quently die from the effects of alcoholic 

 beverages too freely administered to them 

 by their foolish owners. A parrot of my 

 acquaintance had repeated attacks of alco- 

 holic convulsions. I warned its owner 

 against the practice of giving this bird its 

 favorite tipple, port wine, but to no pur- 

 pose. To gratify the curiosity of his pat- 

 rons (the man was a barber), the bird was 

 daily made drunken with port wine negus, 

 to which it finally fell a victim. It gave, be- 

 fore its death, unmistakable evidences that 

 it was suffering from a violent attack of 

 mania a potu. It cowered on the floor ut- 

 tering shriek after shriek of alarm; it 

 pecked at imaginary objects in the air, 

 chased phantoms to and fro about the room, 

 and finally died in violent convulsions. 



Although dreams are not symptoms, per 

 se, of disease, I think it proper, however, to 

 introduce them when writing of these queer 

 patients; for, it happens that dreams, on 

 occasions, induce in animals a momentary 

 insanity during which they may commit 

 dangerous and hurtful acts. The dreaming 

 animal, when suddenly aroused from slum- 

 ber, is apt to confound the real with the im- 

 aginary. I was once severely bitten by a 

 dog which I had awakened from a dream, 

 he, evidently mistaking me for an enemy 

 created by his dream consciousness and 

 transmitted, for the time being, to his ac- 

 tive, waking consciousness. When speak- 

 ing of dreaming animals which have been 

 suddenly aroused, Dr. Lindsay says: " Usu- 

 ally there is more or less mental bewilder- 

 ment, with a tendency to morbid fear and 



