Werewolves: Fact or
Fiction? Werewolves: Fact or
Fiction? One
of the things that may have caused people to believe in
werewolves was people with a condition known as hypertrichosis,
which is also known as wolf-man disease. One of the notable cases of
this
disease was Petrus Gonzales, man and family who had wolf-disease. There
is a
mental disorder that is associated with werewolves, even used as
another name
for it: lycanthropy. This disorder causes a person to think that they
are a
wolf. It distorts their body image in such a way that they can look
into the
mirror and see a wolf rather than a human being.
Another natural cause for werewolves may have been ergot, a
fungus that grows on cereal crops such as rye. If eaten, the fungus can
produce
hallucinations.
The
classical story of the werewolf has nothing to do with
the moon, but rather with witches. They were thought to be witches or
had made
a deal with the Devil, allowing them to change their form. People who
changed
into werewolves dressed in wolf skin, drank water out of an animal
track, or
rubbed a salve onto their skin. The salve generally had poisonous
plants such
as nightshade in it, likely causing hallucinations.
Other stories say that some people naturally turned into
werewolves. Because many of the areas in
