The old man suffering from rheumatism or gout conceives himself to be
formed of china or glass, and the foxhunter tallyhos! at each new moon,
as though he were following a pack. In like manner, the naturally cruel
man, if the least affected in his brain, will suppose himself to be
transformed into the most cruel and bloodthirsty animal with which he
is acquainted.
The hallucinations under which lycanthropists suffered may have arisen
from various causes. The older writers, as Forestus and Burton, regard
the were-wolf mania as a species of melancholy madness, and some do not
deem it necessary for the patient to believe in his transformation for
them to regard him as a lycanthropist.
In the present state of medical knowledge, we know that very different
conditions may give rise to hallucinations.
In fever cases the sensibility is so disturbed that the patient is
often deceived as to the space occupied by his limbs, and he supposes
them to be preternaturally distended or contracted. In the case of
typhus, it is not uncommon for the sick person, with deranged nervous
system, to believe himself to be double in the bed, or to be severed in
half, or to have lost his limbs. He may regard his members as composed
of foreign and often fragile materials, as glass, or he may so lose his
personality as to suppose himself to have become a woman.
A monomaniac who believes himself to be some one else, seeks to enter
into the feelings, thoughts, and habits of the assumed personality, and
from the facility with which this is effected, he draws an argument,
conclusive to himself, of the reality of the change. He thenceforth
speaks of himself under the assumed character, and experiences all its
needs, wishes, passions, and the like. The closer the identification
becomes, the more confirmed is the monomaniac in his madness, the
character of which varies with the temperament of the individual. If
the person’s mind be weak, or rude and uncultivated, the tenacity with
which he clings to his metamorphosis is feebler, and it becomes more
difficult to draw the line between his lucid and insane utterances.
Thus Jean Grenier, who laboured under this form of mania, said in his
trial much that was true, but it was mixed with the ramblings of
insanity.
Hallucination may also be produced by artificial means, and there are
evidences afforded by the confessions of those tried for lycanthropy,
that these artificial means were employed by them. I refer to the salve
so frequently mentioned in witch and were-wolf trials. The following
passage is from the charming _Golden Ass of Apuleius_; it proves that
salves were extensively used by witches for the purpose of
transformation, even in his day:—
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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