Because it is stated in the Bible that the heart of Nebuchadnezzar was changed to that of a beast, and that he ate grass as an ox, it has usually been held that his disease was of the same order as lycanthropy. "There is now no question," writes a learned commentator, "that the disease under which Nebuchadnezzar is said to have suffered is one of a well-known class of diseases known by such names as lycanthropy, kynanthropy, etc., according to the animal whose habits are simulated by the subject of this disease." The statement needs considerable qualification. Lycanthropy, strictly speaking, means not merely the adoption of wolfish habits, but the belief in the actual transmogrification of the human form into that of a wolf. Consequently, if Nebuchadnezzar's disease be called boanthropy, it implies that his body was changed into that of an ox. God is great, and perhaps we ought not to deny the possibility of such transformation, but it is doubtful if, in these days, there are any who would interpret so literally allusions to the bestial proclivities of fallen human nature. Neither can we assert with the Jewish rabbis that the soul of Nebuchadnezzar entered by transmigration into the body of an ox. Therefore, for the sake of clearness, the malady of Nebuchadnezzar ought not to be classed with lycanthropy. Melancholia is a solitary affection, to which even the most intellectual and cultivated are prone, and it appears to be increasing under the stress of our modern complex civilization. Lycanthropy and similar delusions were usually epidemic, affecting only the ignorant and superstitious, and they rapidly disappear as education becomes general.
This uncanny superstition of the were-wolf was very widespread in ancient and mediaeval times. Allusions to it are not infrequent in the classic writings of antiquity, and it may be observed that the metamorphoses are said to have occurred even then among the most uncivilized. Thus Herodotus tells us the Neuri, a savage tribe of Sarmatia, turned to wolves for a few days every year. These transformations were also common in Arcadia. According to the poets and idealists, this was a land of peace, innocence, and patriarchal manners. As a matter of fact, it abounded in forests and morasses, was overrun with wolves and other wild beasts, and the inhabitants were barbarous shepherds and cattlemen. It was just the place where the gloomiest superstitions would find victims. Lycaon, one of its kings, was changed into a wolf by Jupiter for impiously offering him sacrifices of human flesh, and lycanthropy became epidemic among the people. The three daughters of Proetus, the king of Argos, were transformed into cows for neglecting to worship the gods, and, because the king their father was unwilling to pay the price demanded for their cure, other women of the country were similarly transformed. It is interesting to note that the women were all restored to sanity, and of course to their proper shape, by the administration of black hellebore, a plant that for centuries before the Christian era, and after, had a very great reputation for curing melancholia.
In the darkness of the Middle Ages, the superstition lost none of its terrors by being closely associated with diabolical agency and cannibalism. According to an old English writer. "Ther ben somme that eten chyldren and men, and steth noon other flesh fro that tyme that thei be a-charmed with mannys flesh, for rather thei wolde be deed." A later author informs us that "the were-wolves are certayne sorcerers, who, having annoynted the body with an oyntment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, doe not onely unto the view of others seeme as wolves, but to their owne thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they weare the said girdle and they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in wourrying and killing, and most of humane creatures."
Lycanthropy was prevalent in Europe down to quite a late period. At the close of the sixteenth century, there was an epidemic of it in France among the people of the mountains of Jura, the largest number of victims being in the district of St. Oyant, which was under the absolute jurisdiction of the abbey of the same name. Owing to neglect, the people had fallen into the lowest depths of ignorance, poverty, and superstition. Yet it cannot be said the monks knew much more about lycanthropy than the peasants. It was still the orthodox teaching of the church, as expounded by St. Thomas Aquinas, that "all angels, good and bad, have by natural virtue the power of transmuting our bodies." In the fifteenth century a council of theologians, convoked by the Emperor Sigismund, had gravely decided that the loup-garou, or were-wolf, was a reality. With such views it is not surprising that the local church authorities determined to rid the earth of these were-wolves, who were thought to have sold themselves to the devil, or to be otherwise in league with him. More than six hundred of the unfortunate deluded people were therefore either burned to death or strangled. From France the disorder spread to other countries. When it reached Scotland, where wolves were rarely seen, the people affected imagined they had been changed into crows, hares, foxes, cats, dogs, and other animals. The belief in lycanthropy still lingers in different parts of the world, but with the spread of education and increased spiritual enlightenment, it must soon completely disappear. The whole subject forms a very sorrowful minor chapter in the religious history of the race.
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