The opinion has been hazarded that the history of Gilles de Rais is merely a legend. This view is not accepted, but there can be no doubt that the sadistic manifestations which occurred in the Middle Ages were mixed up with legendary and folk-lore elements. These elements centered on the conception of the _werwolf_, supposed to be a man temporarily transformed into a wolf with blood-thirsty impulses. (See, e.g., articles "Werwolf" and "Lycanthropy" in _Encyclopædia Britannica_.) France, especially, was infested with werwolves in the sixteenth century. In 1603, however, it was decided at Bordeaux, in a trial involving a werwolf, that lycanthropy was only an insane delusion. Dumas ("Les Loup-Garous," _Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique_, May-June, 1907) argues that the medieval werwolves were sadists whose crimes were largely imaginative, though sometimes real, the predecessor of the modern Jack the Ripper. The complex nature of the elements making up the belief in the werwolf is emphasized by Ernest Jones, _Der Alptraum_, 1912. Related to the werwolf, but distinct, was the _vampire_, supposed to be a dead person who rose from the dead to suck the blood of the living during sleep. By way of reprisal the living dug up, exorcised, and mutilated the supposed vampires. This was called vampirism. The name vampire was then transferred to the living person who had so treated a corpse. All profanation of the corpse, whatever its origin, is now frequently called vampirism (Epaulow, _Vampirisme_, Thèse de Lyon, 1901; id., "Le Vampire du Muy," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Sept., 1903). The earliest definite reference to necrophily is in Herodotus, who tells (bk. ii, ch. lxxxix) of an Egyptian who had connection with the corpse of a woman recently dead. Epaulow gives various old cases and, at full length, the case which he himself investigated, of Ardisson, the "Vampire du Muy." W.A.F. Browne also has an interesting article on "Necrophilism" (_Journal of Mental Science_, Jan., 1875) which he regards as atavistic. When there is, in addition, mutilation of the corpse, the condition is termed necrosadism. There seems usually to be no true sadism in either necrosadism or necrophilism. (See, however, Bloch, _Beiträge_, vol. ii, p. 284 et seq.) It must be said also that cases of rape followed by murder are quite commonly not sadistic. The type of such cases is represented by Soleilland, who raped and then murdered children. He showed no sadistic perversion. He merely killed to prevent discovery, as a burglar who is interrupted may commit murder in order to escape. (E. Dupré, "L'Affaire Soleilland," _Archives d'Anthropologie Criminelle_, Jan.-Feb., 1910.)