Case file · High strangeness
Fox possession under the psychiatrist's eye
In the 1880s and 1890s Japanese doctors studied kitsune-tsuki (fox possession), in which people, often women, spoke and acted as foxes; psychiatrist Shun'ichi Shimamura surveyed cases in Shimane in 1892.
1892 CE · 35.47, 133.05 · status: explained
The account
The German physician Erwin Bälz had described it in Tokyo lectures. Families in some regions were said to keep foxes or dog spirits (inugami) and faced marriage discrimination as 'possessing lineages'.
The sceptical view
Doctors classed fox possession as a culture-bound syndrome linked to hysteria and psychosis; it faded with modern medicine.