at the tale of _Hugh the Wolf_ is not entirely founded upon
superstition and the supernatural.

"Let his heart be changed from man's, and let a beast's heart be given
unto him!" Such was the sentence pronounced and executed upon him of
Babylon whose pride called for abasement from the Lord. Dr. Mead (_Medica
Sacra_, p. 59) observes that there was known among the ancients a mental
disorder called lycanthropy, the victims of which fancied themselves
wolves, and went about howling and attacking and tearing sheep and young
children (_Aetius, Lib. Med_. vi., _Paul AEgineta_, iii. 16). So, again,
Virgil tells of the daughters of Praetus, who fancied themselves to be
cows, and running wildly about the pastures, "implerunt falsis mugitibus
agros."--Ecl. vi. 48. This horrible disease appears happily to have been
a rare one, and recoveries from it have taken place, for it is not
destructive of the sufferer's life. It has even been thoroughly cured
after a lapse of many years.

Dr. Pusey (_Notes on Daniel_, p. 425), in a disquisition of great fulness
upon the disease of Nebuchadnezzar, refers to a communication which he
received from Dr. Browne, a Commissioner of the Board of Lunacy for
Scotland, in which he says, "My opinion is that in all mental powers or
conditions the idea of personal identity is but rarely enfeebled, and
that it is never extinguished. The ego and non-ego may be confused; the
ego, however, continues to preserve the personality. All the angels,
devils, dukes, lords, kings, "gods many" that I have had under my care
remained what they were before they became angels, dukes, etc., in a
sense, and even nominally. I have seen a man declaring himself the
Saviour or St. Paul sign himself _James Thomson_, and attend worship as
regularly as if the notion of divinity had never entered into his head."

Esquirol, a very trustworthy writer, has a description of an
extraordinary outbreak of lycanthropy in France (in the Jura, at Dole,
and other places in Eastern France) in the 16th century.

"This terrible affliction began to manifest itself in France in the
15th century, and the name of '_loups-garous_' has been given to the
sufferers. These unhappy beings fly from the society of mankind and live
in the woods, the cemeteries, or old ruins, prowling about the open
country only by night, howling as they go. They let their beard and nails
grow, and then seeing themselves armed with claws and covered with shaggy
hair, they be