Note 375 — Chapter XXIV · [360]

It is not surprising, in view of the facts of animal history and evolution, that the very special object blood should have become the stimulus for a very special interest and excitement. That the sight of it should make people faint is strange. Less so that a child who sees his blood flow should forthwith become much more frightened than by the mere feeling of the cut. Horned cattle often, though not always, become furiously excited at the smell of blood. In some abnormal human beings the sight or thought of it exerts a baleful fascination. "B and his father were at a neighbor's one evening, and, while paring apples, the old man accidentally cut his hand so severely as to cause the blood to flow profusely. B was observed to become restless, nervous, pale, and to have undergone a peculiar change in demeanor. Taking advantage of the distraction produced by the accident, B escaped from the house and proceeded to a neighboring farm-yard, where he cut the throat of a horse, killing it." Dr. D. H. Tuke, commenting on this man's case (Journal of Mental Science, October, 1885), speaks of the influence of blood upon him—his whole life had been one chain of cowardly atrocities—and continues: "There can be no doubt that with some individuals it constitutes a fascination.... We might speak of a mania sanguinis. Dr. Savage admitted a man from France into Bethlehem Hospital some time ago, one of whose earliest symptoms of insanity was the thirst for blood, which he endeavored to satisfy by going to an abattoir in Paris. The man whose case I have brought forward had the same passion for gloating over blood, but had no attack of acute mania. The sight of blood was distinctly a delight to him, and at any time blood aroused in him the worst elements of his nature. Instances will easily be recalled in which murderers, undoubtedly insane, have described the intense pleasure they experienced in the warm blood of children."