STRANGE FEARS

Evening Star, Issue 21006, 21 January 1932, Page 2

STRANGE FEARS

MEN AND ANIMALS NAPOLEON'S SCARE Some famous people have displayed a pronounced antipathy to cats. When Napoleon was quartered at the Imperial Palace of Schoubrunn, in Vienna, after the Battle of Wagram, an aide do camp, on retiring to his room at a late hour, heard shout's for help coming from Napoleon’s bedroom. On opening the door tho officer saw Napoleon half-dressed, running about the room and thrusting his sword through tho tapestries hanging against the walls, in search for a cat that had taken refuge them (says a writer in the Melbourne ‘Age’). The Emperor was in a state af agitation, and beads of. perspiration were running down his face. Another great soldier who could not bear cats was Field-marshal Earl Roberts. Henry 111. of France could not sit in a room in which there was a cat, and tho Buko of Schomberg had the same aversion. It is recorded that a gentleman at the Court of the Ferdinand, German King and Roman Emperor, would bleed at the nose on hearing the mewing of a cat. Hr S. Weir Mitchell, an American medical man, who devoted some attention to ailurophobia, the name given to tho sickness and alarm created in human beings by the presence of\cats, noted thirty cases within his own experience of persons who could tollywhen an unseen cat was in the room. He contributed a paper on the subject to ‘American Medicine’ for July, 1905. Mention has been made of a soldier of distinction who had a reputation as a tiger slayer, but became terrified in the presence of a domestic cat. Medical science is unable to explain this antipathy of cats. Dr Mitchell’s suggestion that it is an example of “inherited remainders of animal instincts of protective nature ” is decidedly weak. That might explain tho mouse’s feelings towards* the cat, but not the unreasoning antipathy of a comparatively small' proportion _ of men and women. It is an established fact that the cat likes tho people whonlislike it so much that they cannot bear the sight of it. Tho cat likes to keep near them,.to jump on their laps, and to follow them about. OTHER ANIMALS. There are other comparatively harmless animals which inspire dislike and even terror in individuals. M. de Lancre gives an account of a man!who was terrified at the sight of a hedgehog, and of an army officer who was so terrified at the sight of a mouse that he dared not f/ice one unless he had a sword in his hand. The Duke d’Epcrnon swooned oh seeing a leveret; hut the sight of a full-grown hare had not tho same effect. Tycho Brahe fainted at the sight of a’fox, and Marshal d’Albert at that of a pig. M. Vangheim, ’of Hanover, who had a reputation as a huntsman,, would faint in the ’presence of a roasted pig. Erasmus had such an objection to fish that he developed feverish symptoms whenever he smelt fish. Ambrose Pare mentions a man who fainted whenever he saw an eel, and another who went into convulsions at the sight of a carp. Tho perfumes of some _ flowers are known to produce nausea in a few individuals. Amatus Lusitanus refers to the case of a monk who fainted whenever ho saw a rose, and kept close to his cell when tho rose trees were in bloom. Joseph Scaliger, a French scholar, of tho sixteenth century, mentions that one of his relations became sick when he saw a lily; and Scaliger himself turned pale at the sight of water cress, and regarded milk as a most offensive beverage. Montaigne, in discussing these inexplicable repugnances, mentions that some men (of whom Uladislaus, King of Poland, was one) could not bear the smell of apples. If an apple was shown to Chcsne, secretary to Francis 1. of France, he bled at the nose. Zimmerman refers to a

lady who could not endure the touch of silk or satin, and shuddered if she touched the velvety skin of a peach. Robert Boyle, famous as a natural philosopher and chemist, could pot without fainting endure the sound _ of splashing water, or water running through a pipe. He records the case of a man who had a remarkable abhorrence of honey. The sound of a servant sweeping has been known to produce nausea. La Mothe le Vayer could not endure the sound of musical instruments, but liked the noise of thunder. FOODS DISLIKED. Some men and women have pronounced prejudices against certain foods.. Some cannot eat fish; vothers have an aversion to poultry, rabbit, cheese, and certain fruits and vegetables. Horseflesh is the chief meat diet of the working classes in France and Belgium, but across the Channel in England there is a national prejudice against eating horseflesh. In theory the cat’s-meat man (who describes himself on his shop window as “Pussy’s butcher ”) is the only man who buys horseflesh in England from the knacker; but there is reason to believe that some horseflesh finds its way in seme countries into sausages. Almost everyone has an aversion from trying experiments in eating the flesh of animals not usually prepared for the table. But in the face_ cf starvation this prejudice soon vanishes. During the Groat War, when the Allies»maintained a naval blockade of the Central Empires, the food shortage became so acute in Germany that thousands of dogs and cats were eaten. Prisoners of war when endeavouring to escape from Germany across ,the Dutch frontier could tell at night when they were approaching the frontier by the,barking of dogs. In Germany the nights were peaceful, because there were no dogs to bark. The siege of Paris during the FrancoPrussian War of 1870-71 lasted four months and a-half, and compelled the people of the besieged city to eat dogs, cats, rats, mice, and most of the animals at the Zoo, which was at the Jardin des Plantes. IN PARIS. The following entries from the diary of Victor Hugo, who was one of the 1,800,000 Parisians to go through the siege, give an indication of the straits to which the people'were reduced: — October 16 (one month afte - the siege began).—We are eating horse with all it; variations. October 22.—For the last two days Paris has been reduced to salt meat. A rat costs fourpence. November 23.—Pies are made out of rats. An onion costs a halfpenny', and a potato a halfpenny. November 27.—We have bought an antelope’s leg from the Jardm des Plantes. . November 28.—We ate bear for dinner. December I.—Yesterday we ate venison, tear the day before, and antelope the two previous days. These are presents from thp Jardin des PlantesJ December 3.—After to-day we shall have only brown bread in Paris. December 16.—Yesterday I ate rat.

December 30. —Wo are now eating nothing but; pork or perhaps -clog or perhaps rat; we are eating we don t know what. December 31.—1 am sharing the sufferings of the people. It is true that 1 can’t digest horse, but I eat it all the same, and am given slices of it.. We were eating brown bread, but now we are on black bread. It is the same for all of us, and that is right. Francis Buckland, a British naturalist, who died in 1880, had no prejudices in the matter of diet. He is remembered to-day less for his work as. a naturalist than for his daring gastronomical experiments. To some .extent his appetite for strange meats was inherited' from lus father, Dean Buckland. It, is recorded that when a horse belonging to the dean’s brother-in-law was. shot tho dean had tlie tongue of the animal pickled and served at a luncheon party. The guests enjoyed this delicacy, but were subsequently somewhat dismayed when told what they had eaten’.

STRANGE FANCIES. As a naturalist and honorary pathologist of the London Zoo, Francis Buckland had many opportunities of indulging his strange fancies in the matter of meat. Mio>, rats, frogs, snails, hedgehogs; tortoises, and puppies were served at his table at intervals. After he became associated with the Zoo he tried alligator steak and soun-madc from ap elephant’s trunk. Wlien the giraffe house at the Zoo was burned down ho was able to indulge in roast giraffe. He recorded in his journal that after learning a panther had died at the Zoo; “ 1 wrote up at once to tell them to send me down some chops. It had, however, been buried a couple of days, but 1 got them to dig it up and send me some. It was not very good.” ; , Primitive people seem to have no objection to eating putrid_ food; in fact, some seem to prefer their meat in that condition/ Major P. M. Stewart, in his book, 1 Travels and Sport in Many Lands,’ states that he watched a. scramble among his native carriers in Central Africa for the hindquarters of a tiny antelope which was in a putrid condition. “At that time I was surprised at their craving for meat and their indifference to its condition,” he writes, “(for I did not know then that they devour caterpillars and bee bread, mix blood with their meal, and have no objection to stale eggs of almost any' age, or decayed fish of every description. They also drank the foulest ’ water, apparently with impunity.” He - quotes Livingstone’s statements that “ the native idea of a good egg differs as widely from our own as is possible on such a trifling subject,”'also\that “ an egg is eaten with apparent relish though an embryo chick be inside,’’ and when travelling up the Zambesi “ the canoe men invariably picked up every dead fish they saw on the surface of the water, however far gone. " An unfragrant odour was no objection; the fish was boiled and eaten, and the water drunk as soup.” \

NOT THE DONKEY,

On the other hand, when a donkey died they were shocked at the idea of eating it, saying “ it would be like eat-r ing mim himself, because the donkey lives with man, and is his bosom .companion.” So, too, a chief refused a leg of an ox, saying that neither ho nor his people ever partook of beef, as they “ looked on cattle as human, and living , at home like'men.” , ’v ■

The later Frederick C. Selotis. in his book, ‘A Hunter’s Wanderings in Africa,’, records that on one occasion his men came across an addled ostrllh egg, and esteemed it such a delicacy that they licked every piece of'the shell, that .could be found after the egg was cracked. Selous also mentions that some natives cut up the carcass of an elephant that hafl been lying for eight ‘ days beneath the fierces rays of the. tropical sun. “ Truly. some tribes of kaffirs and bushmen are fouler feeders, than the vultures or. hyenas,” wrote Selous. “ This is not an isolated case, as they • are constantly in tin habit of eating putrid meat, and there is little doubt yliat they like it just as well, if not better, than sweet flesh; curiously, too, it does not seem, to do. them any ham.”

Mr F. A. Mitchell-Hedges, in hia book, ‘ Land of Wonder and Fear,’notes the same fact in regard to the Indians in British Honduras (Central America). “ One of the mysteries we never solved,” he states, “ was how they were able to eat putrid food without suffering the least inconvenience. They can consume vast quantities in an advanced state of putrefaction that would more likely than not kill a white man. But with them it has no ill effects.” '