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Madness in Animals

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 February 2018

W. Lauder Lindsay*
Affiliation:
Murray Royal Institution [for the Insane], Perth

Extract

If the term insanity, as applied to man, is one that it is difficult, if not impossible, accurately to define;—if human insanity includes a great number of the most diverse mental and bodily conditions or phenomena,—the term madness, as applied to other animals, is still more vague and unsatisfactory in its definition, and animal madness includes a much more heterogeneous group of the most opposite kinds of maladies. While the said term madness has been borrowed by veterinarians from human medicine, it is evidently regarded in a different signification when applied to other animals than man. So much so, that while the character of the mental phenomena in certain diseases of the lower animals must be, and is, admitted by all veterinarians, they deny, nevertheless, their parallelism to those of insanity in man, on the ground that animals have not sound minds, and cannot, therefore, possess unsound ones! Such a belief merely illustrates the utter ignorance and prejudice regarding the mental constitution of animals, which appear to be characteristic of veterinarians as a class.

Type
Part I.—Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Royal College of Psychiatrists, 1871 

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References

Dr. Cobbold has lately shown [“British Medical Journal,” January 28, 1871, p. 100] how utterly untrustworthy are veterinarians and butchers in matters passing daily under their notice; in those relating, for instance, to the entozoic diseases of meat, v.Google Scholar

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There is much confusion in the use of the terms rabies and hydrophobia by different writers-medical or veterinary. By some, the first is restricted to animals the second to man; while, by others, they are used indiscriminately and synonymously. Professor Aitken, in his “Science and Practice of Medicine” (Vol. i., p. 67), uses the terms synonymously; while on p. 672 he distinguishes rabies as the disease of the dog, and hydrophobia as that of man. Inasmuch as it is unquestionably the same disease that occurs both in man and the dog, the use of two appellations is not only unnecessary, but mischievous. That which is the most objectionable in its etymology and application is the term hydrophobia, which it would be well, therefore1 henceforth to give up as inappropriate. Some writers (e. g. Sauvages, in 1769) restrict the term to the single symptomdread of water, inability or refusal to iwallow fluids.Google Scholar

§ In Poland, hydrophobia in man appears to be regarded as a form of insanity. At least we are told that “The Lunatic Asylum at Warsaw receives every year a certain number of persons who have been bitten by dogs suspected of being mad, during July and August. The number of these individuals sent there by the authorities on the ground of possible development of hydrophobia amounts sometimes to as many as 20.” (“Med. Times,” Vol. ii. for 1858, p. 486.)Google Scholar

Among symptoms in the sheep [pregnant ewes] are “extraordinary and unnatural Bolaoity, in which the manner, and gesture, and sounds, of the male were closely imitated; followed by unhealthy appetite-swallowing wood, straw, dung, Sco. intense pugnacity and frenzy.” (“Med. Times,” Vol. i. for 1868, p. 616.)Google Scholar

Similar mis-application of the terms rabid and rabidity is not uncommon among medical writers. Thus Prof. Laycock applies the word rabid to the delirium of malignant pustule in animals [“Edin. Med. Journal,” November, 1856, p. 867], and it is frequently in a similar way applied to delirium or mania utterly unconnected with rabies.Google Scholar

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The celebrated Cullen ranked hydrophobia with hysteria, and divided it into two varieties, “one caused by the bite of a rabid animal, and characterised by the desire to bite; the other not having this tendency to bite and (probably) not produced by the bite of a rabid animal. Several instances of hydrophobia of the latter kind have been recorded by Dr. Inn's, a Professor of Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, in 1732; and by Pinel, Sarriotte, and other writers.” (“Association Medical Journal,” 1855, p. 514.) An admirable review of the whole subject of animal rabies and human hydrophobia, by Dr. Lindley Kemp, is to be found in the “Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal,” for Jan., 1855, or in abstract in the “Association Med. Journal,” just quoted.Google Scholar

“Science and Practice of Medicine op. cit.,” p. 681.Google Scholar

Dr. Lindley Kemp appears of opinion that the symptoms, which occasionally come on some time after the bite of a rabid animal, are in some way analogous to traumatic tetanus; yet that there is a difference, the disease being modified by the impression made on the patient's mind by the nature of the accident, and by his having in the interval anxiously read books about hydrophobia, consulted with his friends about it, and brooded over his reflections until his mental porters have become decidedly affected. Dr. Kemp would rather classify hydrophobia with hysteria, catalepsy, and diseases of that class which occur in those only who possess mobility of the nervous centres. In proof of the alliance of hydrophobia with these diseases in which moral causes act, Dr. Kemp relates the case of a gentleman who was cured of hydrophobic symptoms by being persuaded that the dog which had bitten him was certainly not rabid.11 ('2 Assoc, Med. Jour.,” 1855, p. 515.)Google Scholar

“Year Book of the New Sydenham Society,” for 1861, p. 232.Google Scholar

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In an admirable summary of the chief features of Rabies canina, given in a Memoir presented by fid. Boudin to the Frenoh Academy of Medicine, in 1861, he asserts that “No true pathognomonic sign of rabies exists in the dog.” [Union Médicale : quoted in abstract in “Medical Times,” vol. ii., for 1861, p. 563.]Google Scholar

“Medical. Times,” vol. i., for 1863, p. 225.Google Scholar

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Babies is not confined to the dog; it occurs also in the fox, wolf, jackal, and cat, and is communicable to probably all warn.-blooded animals, certainly to all domesticated animals, such as the horse, elephant, sheep, ox, and even the oommon fowl [Aitken : “Science and Practice of Medicine,” p. 679.]Google Scholar

“The salivary secretion also, both in dogs and man, is by most non regarded as innocuous. Prof. Dick, of Edinburgh, has come to the conclusion that the saliva of a rabid dog has no power of inducing disease when introduced into the system of another dog” …. “If the saliva be unchanged, and innocuous, there is an end” [says Dr. Lindley Kemp] “to the belief that the bite of a rabid dog can produce hydrophobia or any specific disease.”- [Assoc. Med. Journ., 1855, p. 514.]Google Scholar

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A report was made upon them by the late Harry Ludlow, the then house surgeon, in the “Medical Times” for September 18,1852. They are quoted in the “Medical Times” for August 23, 1862, p. 195Google Scholar

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Translated by a correspondent of the “Medical Times,” in that journal for Jan. 14, 1860, p. 46.Google Scholar

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