The Anatomy of Melancholy

Other kinds of this madness are inspired transports, revelations and visions, so often mentioned by Gregory and Bede; demonic harassment or possession; Sibylline prophecy and poetic frenzy; and states produced by eating poisonous herbs, by tarantula stings and so on, which some place in this category. The best known are lycanthropy, hydrophobia and St Vitus’s dance.

Lycanthropy, which Avicenna calls cucubuth and others “wolf-madness,” occurs when people run howling around graves and fields at night and cannot be persuaded that they are anything but wolves or similar beasts. Aetius and Paulus call it a kind of melancholy, but I would rather place it under madness, as most writers do.

Some doubt whether any such disease exists. Donatus Altomarus says that he saw two such patients in his lifetime. Wierus tells of a man at Padua in 1541 who could not be made to believe that he was anything other than a wolf. He gives another example of a Spaniard who thought himself a bear. Forestus supports this with many cases, including one he witnessed at Alkmaar in Holland: a poor farm worker who continually prowled around graves and stayed in churchyards, with a pale, dark, ugly and frightening appearance.

King Proetus’s daughters, who thought themselves cows, were probably in much the same condition. According to some interpreters, Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel suffered only from this kind of madness. This disease may have prompted Pliny’s bold assertion that some men in his time were changed into wolves and back into men again; Pausanias’s fable of a man who was a wolf for ten years before returning to his former shape; and Ovid’s story of Lycaon, among others.

Anyone wishing to learn more about this disease or read further examples should consult Augustine’s City of God, book 18, chapter 5; Mizaldus, fifth century, item 77; Schenck, book 1; Hildesheim’s second collection, on madness; Forestus, book 10, on diseases of the brain; Olaus Magnus; Vincent of Beauvais, spec. met., book 31, chapter 122; Pierius, Bodin, Zwinger, Zeilger, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger and others.

This malady, Avicenna says, troubles people most in February; according to Heurnius, it is now frequent in Bohemia and Hungary. Schernitzius says it is common in Livonia. Those affected usually hide all day and go out at night, barking and howling around graves and deserted places. They generally have sunken eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, and are very dry and pale, Altomarus says. He explains all the symptoms there and gives a brief account of their treatment.

Hydrophobia is a kind of madness well known in every village. It comes from the bite of a mad dog, or from scratching, Aurelianus says; sometimes merely from touching or smelling, as Schenck demonstrates. It affects many other creatures as well as humans. It takes its name from the sufferers’ inability to bear the sight of water or any other liquid, in which they continually imagine they see a mad dog.