An example less difficult of reconcilement with the theory of cerebral disorder than that of the witchcraft of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and yet more complex than that of the fantasies of _delirium tremens_, may be found in the case of _lycanthropism_, or that form of mania in which men have fancied themselves transformed into wolves. This disease also is contagious; and on many occasions has exhibited itself in all the terrors of a maniacal epidemic. As early as the time of Herodotus the belief was rife among the Græco-Scythian colonies that a people called the Neuri were subject to this species of metamorphosis; and Giraldus Cambrensis, in the twelfth century, found the same superstition in full force in Ireland. It again broke forth in Livonia, its ancient seat, with all the symptoms of a periodical annual epidemic, in the sixteenth century. Peucer gives the following account of what these maniacs themselves believed to happen to them. "Immediately after Christmas day, in each year, a club-footed boy appears, who goes round the country, and summons all those slaves of Satan, of whom there are great numbers, to assemble and follow him. If they hesitate or refuse, a tall man appears, armed with a whip of flexible iron wires, and compels them with blows of his scourge to come forth and proceed. He whips them so severely, that oft-times the stripes left by the iron thongs remain impressed on their bodies and torment them cruelly. As soon as they go out and follow in the train, they seem to lose their human form, and to put on the appearance of wolves. Several thousands thus assemble. The leader walks before with his iron scourge; the crowd of those who, in their delusion, imagine that they have become wolves, follow after. Wherever they meet with cattle they rush upon them and rend them; they carry off such portions as they can, and do much destruction; but to touch or injure mankind is not permitted to them. When they come to rivers, the leader with a stroke of his whip divides the waters, which stand apart, leaving a dry channel by which they cross. After twelve days the band disperses, and every man resumes his own form, the vulpine mask dropping off him. The way in which the change takes place is this, as they allege: those who undergo the change, which occupies but a moment, drop suddenly down as if struck with a fit, and so lie senseless and like dead persons; but they do not in fact go away or change their places at all; nor while lying in that seemingly lifeless state do they exhibit any vulpine appearance whatever, but they go out of themselves (and leave themselves) like dead bodies; and save that they are convulsed, and roll about somewhat, they exhibit no sign or evidence of life. Hence the opinion has arisen that their spirits only are taken forth of their bodies, and put for a time into the phantasms of vulpine forms; and then, after doing the bidding of the devil in that way, are remitted back to