Note 44 — Chapter II · DANCING MANIA IN ITALY.

Burton, in his Anatomy of Melancholy, has the following observations, which, with the ample references by which they are accompanied, will furnish materials for such a history.

“Lycanthropia, which Avicenna calls cucubuth, others lupinam insaniam, or wolf-madness, when men run howling about graves and fields in the night, and will not be persuaded but that they are wolves, or some such beasts. Aëtius (Lib. 6. cap. 11.) and Paulus (Lib. 3. cap. 16.) call it a kind of melancholy; but I should rather refer it to madness, as most do. Some make a doubt of it, whether there be any such disease. Donat. ab Altomari (Cap. 9. Art. Med.) saith, that he saw two of them in his time: Wierus (De Præstig. Demonum, 1. 3. cap. 21.) tells a story of such a one at Padua, 1541, that would not believe to the contrary, but that he was a wolf. He hath another instance of a Spaniard, who thought himself a bear. Forestus (Observat. lib. 10. de Morbis Cerebri, c. 15.) confirms as much by many examples; one, among the rest, of which he was an eye-witness, at Alcmaer in Holland.—A poor husbandman that still hunted about graves, and kept in churchyards, of a pale, black, ugly, and fearful look. Such, belike, or little better, were king Prœtus’ daughters, (Hippocrates lib. de insaniâ,) that thought themselves kine: and Nebuchadnezzar, in Daniel, as some interpreters hold, was only troubled with this kind of madness. This disease, perhaps, gave occasion to that bold assertion of Pliny, (Lib. 8. cap. 22. homines interdum lupos fieri; et contra,) some men were turned into wolves in his time, and from wolves to men again; and to that fable of Pausanias, of a man that was ten years a wolf, and afterwards turned to his former shape; to Ovid’s (Met. lib. 1.) tale of Lycaon, &c. He that is desirous to hear of this disease, or more examples, let him read Austin in his eighteenth book, de Civitate Dei, cap. 5; Mizaldus, cent. 5. 77; Schenkius, lib. 1. Hildesheim, Spicil. 2. de maniâ; Forestus, lib. 10. de morbis cerebri; Olaus Magnus; Vicentius Bellavicensis, spec. met. lib. 31. c. 122; Pierius, Bodine, Zuinger, Zeilgur, Peucer, Wierus, Spranger, &c. This malady, saith Avicenna, troubleth men most in February, and is now-a-days frequent in Bohemia and Hungary, according to Heurnius. (Cap. de Man.) Schernitzius will have it common in Livonia. They lie hid, most part, all day, and go abroad in the night, barking, howling, at graves and deserts; they have usually hollow eyes, scabbed legs and thighs, very dry and pale, (Ulcerata crura; sitis ipsis adest immodica; pallidi; lingua sicca,) saith Altomarus: he gives a reason there of all the symptoms, and sets down a brief cure of them.”—Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy. Tenth Edit.: 8vo. 1804. Vol. 1. Page 13, et seq.

It is surprising that so learned a writer as Burton should not have alluded to Oribasius, who flourished 140 years before Aëtius, and of whom Freind says, “In auctore hoc miri cujusdam morbi prima mentio est; is Λυκάνθρωπος sive Λυκανθρωπία dicitur, estque melancholiæ, aut insaniæ, species quænam ita ab illo descripta: ‘Quos hoc malum infestos habet, nocturno tempore domo egressi, Lupos in omnibus rebus imitantur, et ad diem usque circa tumulos vagantur mortuorum. Hos ita cognosce: pallidi sunt, oculos hebetes et siccos, non illachrymantes, eosque concavos habent: lingua siccissima est, nulla penitus in ore saliva conspicitur, siti enecti; crura vero, quia noctu sæpe offendunt, sine remedio exulcerata.’—‘Quod ad morbum ipsum attinet, si peregrinantibus fides adhibenda est, fuit olim in quibusdam regionibus, ut in Livonia, Hibernia, et aliis locis visi non infrequens,’” &c.—J. Freind. Opera omnia Med. fol. London. 1733.

De hujus morbi antiquitatibus vide elegantem Böttigeri disputationem in Sprengelii Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Med. 11. p. 1–45. Blancard. Lexic. Med. Edit. noviss. 8vo. Lipsiæ, 1822.—Transl. note.