Animals with human faces. A guide to animal symbolism

an absorbing, candid and well-written account of his life in Germany under the Wilhehnian Empire, the Weimar Republic, National Socialism, and now the Federal Republic of Germany. As a social document dealing with middle-class life and politics in twentieth-century Germany this book is especially important. It likewise provides a revealing account of German medicine in peace-time and during war, especially on the Russian front in World War II. Above all it displays the moral and physical courage, the character, the vision and the humanity of a forceful yet benevolent and unselfish doctor. When criticisms are made of the so-called "vivisection" of animals by scientists in their experiments, men like Forssmann, and there are many of them, should be recalled; how they inflicted pain, discomfort and potential hazards upon themselves, thinking only of the possibility of advancing human biology. has produced a scholarly work on the subject. Man has seen fit to endow animals with human characteristics, and so we have the wise owl, the cunning fox, the faithful dog, the industrious ant, and so forth. Similarly, the lady who wraps her poodle in a woollen jacket is projecting her feelings on to it, for she believes it needs protection from the cold, although, of course, it does not. This process began at a very early prehistoric time and the symbolism became embedded in religious rituals, literature, and in art. The human-headed lions and bulls of Nineveh and the fables of various early cultures are but two examples. The Greeks and Romans made important contributions, which passed unchanged into the medieval world with the addition of Biblical symbolism. As science developed, symbolism naturally declined, but of late we have entered a new phase of it promoted by our mass communication media, the "tiger in your tank" campaign being especially memorable. Professor Rowland has used as her sources Greek and Roman natural histories, the Bidpai and Aesopic fables, bestiaries, the Septuagint and the Vulgate versions of the Bible, medieval encyclopaedias, numerous Renaissance sources, etc. She has selected forty-seven animals, both real and mythical, and considers each in turn alphabetically, from the amphisbaena to the wolf. Origin, significance, etymology, and references in literature are discussed in detail and there are citations to primary and secondary sources. There are also medical aspects of the animals, usually regarding their therapeutic value and considerable associated sexual symbolism; the author's occasional reference to psycho-analytical interpretations, however, could …