391 
MONOMANIA IN DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
Professor Rodet. 
We scarcely find any mention of insanity in the domesti¬ 
cated animals in-the writings of modern authors, whether on 
agriculture, horsemanship, or veterinary medicine. This seems 
the more astonishing, seeing that, although the brain and its 
functions do not predominate in them, as in man, over the organs 
and functions of simple life, yet they attain a certain degree of 
development and perfection, and are liable to the same impres¬ 
sions, and changes, and diseases, and are exalted, and di¬ 
minished or destroyed in the same way, although not in the 
same degree. 
‘‘The inferior animals” says Aygalenq, “ being, to a certain 
extent, endowed with the same faculties as ourselves, are sus¬ 
ceptible, although less perfectly, of the same moral qualities. 
Hatred, love, fear, hope, joy, distress, courage, timidity, mild¬ 
ness, anger, and to which I may add, cunning, finesse, jealousy, 
mimicry, and many a varied passion, influence and agitate them 
as they do the human being. The dog is an illustration of this— 
the most susceptible to every impression, and approaching the 
nearest to man in his instincts, and in many an action that sur¬ 
prises the philosopher who justly appreciates it. Affection and 
fidelity to his master are his distinguishing characteristics: he 
faces every danger to save him from harm—searches unremit¬ 
tingly for him if he has lost him, refusing all food, and inces¬ 
santly calling him ; and, at length, he dies broken-hearted on 
the spot where his benefactor perished. Surely these actions 
prove that he is endowed with intelligence and with affections, 
which, if they do not equal ours, are of the same character.” 
“ The influence of the passions on the inferior animals,” says the 
same author in another place, “ is an object of consideration and 
of research, which has not yet occupied, as it ought, the mind of 
any one.” 
Hurtrel d'Arboval, under the article mania, says, “It is a 
general chronic delirium, which either extends to numerous ob¬ 
jects or is confined to one, or to a very small number, in which 
case it is called monomania. Animals being less subject than 
man to the influence of the passions which often so violently 
torment him, are much less exposed to mania, and are scarcely 
susceptible of it from any moral cause ; they can only experience 
that species of mental alienation which arises from some malfor¬ 
mation or alteration of the brain. To this cause must probably 
