Gavel Gamut
By Jim Redwine
(Week of 15 June 2015)
When psychiatrists and psychologists diagnose for human mental illness they use psychometric tests and sometimes DNA factors but mainly just talk. That is, people, criminal defendants who have claimed insanity for example, are simply interviewed and their responses are analyzed. If their observed behavior plus their answers fall into certain categories, they are said to be mentally ill.
I assume the researchers at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the Stanley Medical Research Institute used the same methods to determine cat ownership can lead to human mental illness. The scientific journal Schizophrenia Research stated:
“Cat ownership in childhood has now been reported in three studies to be significantly more common in families in which the child is later diagnosed with schizophrenia or other serious mental illness….â€
The researchers attributed the causal connection to be a cat-borne parasite called Toxoplasma gondii that can cause an infection in humans. It is estimated that more than sixty million Americans may have caught this parasite from cats.
I do not know what methodology the researchers used, but since interviews are the main focus of detecting human mental illness I will assume the same is true for cats. I have tried this approach with our cat, Ajax. The interview went like this.
Ajax: Jim you are a human, right?
Jim: Right.
Ajax: Cats often fight over territory. Do humans engage in such behavior?
Jim: Not really. We do fight but we are too highly developed to need a reason.
Ajax: From watching television while clawing at Peg’s new carpet I note humans must spend a great deal of their time talking about sex.
Jim: That’s right, but for most people it’s just talk.
Ajax: Also, my fellow cats and I have marveled at all the food we find in dumpsters and landfills. We appreciate the cornucopia but wonder where it all comes from.
Jim: Yes, we humans have given ourselves dominion over the earth and we celebrate that situation by using what we please.
Ajax: Jim, you know we cats, especially we who are male, frequently abandon our young to their own devices. How about you guys.
Jim: No, we are very proud of all of our programs that focus on other people’s children.
Ajax: When you and Peg take me to the veterinarian, say to get “fixedâ€, and by the way I have never thanked you for that, I note people are caring for lots of animals. Do humans treat humans the same way?
Jim: Absolutely. We have Obama Care.
After this interview Ajax curled up in my favorite chair and gnawed on my house shoe as he issued his expert opinion on whether there was a connection between cats, humans and mental illness. He scratched his conclusion into Peg’s damask tablecloth:
“Humans make cats crazy.â€
