CYNOTHERAPY, the practice of healing by means of dogs, is of great antiquity and almost world-wide distribution. In it the use of the dog may be merely magical or ceremonial, or the parts of the dog itself may be used as medicine or as ingredients therein. Primitive thought does not clearly distinguish between what is magical and what is medicinal. The domestication of the dog dates from the Mesolithic age, and its use as food is wide spread and has generally some ceremonial significance, a signifi cance perhaps due to the great value of the dog to the ancient hunter or shepherd. Thus in the Nicobar islands, where the dog is apparently a tribal token, it is sacrificed, then cooked and eaten. The Lhota Nagas of Assam sacrifice (and eat) dogs at a propitia tory ceremony because the dog, being the cleverest of all animals, is therefore the most gratifying to the spirits. Among the Igorot of Luzon the dog is used as a ceremonial food, and in mediaeval Europe it was a favourite animal in offerings to the devil. In Argos the dog was sacrificed to a fertility god, and in Sparta and Caria to the god of war; the Macedonians and Boeotians sacrificed dogs in purification rites and so apparently did the Romans, for Pliny mentions that live dogs were fastened in a wooden fork (Nat. Hist. xxix., iv.), much as a Kuki or Naga of Assam impales them on a bamboo spike at this day. The dog also appears to have been eaten as food in Rome. In 813 the Bulgar leader, Krum, sacrificed dogs before Constantinople. The Sema Nagas mark a boundary by burning a live puppy, and a similar use of dogs as sacrifices on important occasions such as in peace-makings, in cementing friend ships, in taking oaths and even in rain-making is common.
But though these uses of the dog may be merely the outcome of a vague feeling of reverence, caused by its sagacity and valuable qualities, of such a feeling as that recorded of the Kenyahs of Borneo, there seems to be more than this at the bottom of its use as medicine, and it may be that there is, or has been, an idea that the soul matter of human beings and of dogs is of similar quality (see METEMPSYCHOSIS ; LYCANTHROPY ; HEAD-HUNTING), and that the latter can usefully be substituted for the former for that reason. It has been suggested—Carveth Read, Origin of Man (1925)—that the sympathy between man and dogs is due to the fact that both are descended from ancestors that hunted in packs. In any case hunting dogs are often treated as human beings; if an Angami Naga kills one, he must leave the village for five days, that of his departure and return being kept as communal tabu days, as if he had committed homicide on a small scale. Hunting dogs were crowned in ancient Italy, are buried with particular respect by the Naga tribes of Assam, and are allotted a definite share of the game killed by the Oraons of Chhota Nagpur in India, by the Khasis and the Naga tribes in Assam, and by the Tinguians of the Philippine Islands. So, too, canine have been substituted for human victims in sacrifice on the Nile, in Hawaii, in the Naga hills, and perhaps in Ireland; and the same idea is no doubt present in the use of dogs for sacrifice in illness by the Koryaks of Siberia, in New Guinea, in Hawaii, and by the Kuki tribes of Assam and Burma, the dog being the sacrifice par excellence in illness among the Thado, Lushei, and Chins. The Bura and Aru islanders of Indonesia eat dogs to acquire bravery, as do the Kansas Indians of the U.S.A. The Romans sacrificed dogs to the Bona Dea and at the Lupercalia. The Huancas of Peru had the same idea and ate dogs at their greatest festival, while the Angami Nagas also make a practice of eating dog at their important annual festival, the Sekrengi, which is intended to secure the health of the community during the ensuing year. The Naga tribes all regard dog's flesh as a valuable tonic and as generally health-giving, while the flesh, blood, or fat of dogs has long been regarded as medicinal in Europe. Hippocrates advocated a diet of dog flesh in certain illnesses, as consumption, and Pliny remarks "that sucking puppies were held fit for food." Culpeper, in his Pharmacopoeia Londiniensis (16S9), recommends newly-whelped puppy as an in gredient in liniment for bruised or wounded limbs, and the Pharmacopee Universelle (i 763) gives directions for the prepara tions of ointment, oil, and liniment from dogs for use in rheuma tism, while a remedy called "dog oil" is still used in the north of A. Male flower (Enlarged) B. Female flower (Enlarged) England for arthritis. Dog, too, is a common nostrum against poison ; "nothing is more potent against poison than dog's blood," says Pliny again (Loc. cit.), and in Ireland "the blood of many dogs" forms part of a charm against poisoning, while the Angami Naga antidote is the eyes of a living dog, plucked out and swallowed. The hair of the dog that bit you is a remedy for dog bite in Assam as well as in Great Britain, while in China there is medicinal virtue in the hair of any dog.
Of course the belief in the virtue of dog flesh may be due, or partly due, to the observations of the healing effects of a dog's licking its own wounds. Langue de chien sert de medecine says the French proverb, while the scrip tural case of Lazarus seems to contain that idea. Cures were ef fected at Epidaurus in the 4th century B.C. by the licking of the patient by dogs sacred to Aescu lapius (q.v.), to which dogs the Athenians actually offered sacri fices. The idea is still current, for a whole family in Co. Dur ham in 1921 attributed their re covery from scabies to the licking of a pet dog (The Lancet, Nov. 1920. (J. H. H.)