Clinical lycanthropy

Clinical lycanthropy is defined as a rare psychiatric syndrome that involves a delusion that the affected person can transform into, has transformed into, or is a non-human animal. Its name is associated with the mythical condition of lycanthropy, a supernatural affliction in which humans are said to physically shapeshift into wolves. It is purported to be a rare disorder.

Catherine Clark Kroeger has written that several parts of the Bible refer to King Nebuchadnezzar's behavior in the book of Daniel 4 as a being manifestation of clinical lycanthropy. Neurologist Andrew J. Larner has written that the fate of Odysseus's crew due to the magic of Circe may be one of the earliest examples of clinical lycanthropy.

Also, it is believed that the king of Armenia Tiridates III also suffered from this disorder. He was cured by Gregory the Illuminator. As a sign of gratitude, Tiridates proclaimed Christianity as the state religion during 301, thus making Armenia the first Christian state.

According to Persian tradition, the Buyid prince Majd ad-Dawla was suffering from an illusion that he was a cow. He was cured by Avicenna.

Notions that lycanthropy was due to a medical condition go back to the seventh century, when the Alexandrian physician Paulus Aegineta attributed lycanthropy to Melancholia or an "excess of black bile". During 1563, a Lutheran physician named Johann Weyer wrote that werewolves suffered from an imbalance in their melancholic humour and exhibited the physical symptoms of paleness, "a dry tongue and a great thirst" as well as sunken, dim and dry eyes. Even King James VI and I in his 1597 treatise Daemonologie does not blame werewolf behaviour on delusions created by the Devil but "an excess of melancholy as the culprit which causes some men to believe that they are wolves and to 'counterfeit' the actions of these animals". The perception of an association between mental illness and animalistic behaviour can be traced throughout the history of folklore from many different countries.

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