Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Boanthropy (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. BJ Talk 19:21, 18 July 2009 (UTC)

Boanthropy II
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No reliabe sources Lindert (talk) 22:50, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I've nominated this article for deletion because I cannot find any reliable sources that confirm the existance of the disease called 'boanthropy'. It has been deleted before, but it was created again without providing any sources by an unregistered user. I think it is a hoax or at best it could be based on anecdotical accounts. Boanthropy, like the name suggests, is said to be a mental disorder causing the victim to think they are a cow.

A google search I did came up only with the definition of the word (like in this article), often associated with the madness of king Nebuchadnezzar II, as described in the book of Daniel. But I could not find any details on the disease, and I found no information on it on medical or psychological websites.

A google scholar search showed only results that associated the word either with Nebuchadnezzar or with were-wolves. For example, the 'Book of Werewolves' says the following (concerning humans taking the form or the mind of animals): "Among the ancients this kind of insanity went by the names of Lycanthropy, Kuanthropy or Boanthropy, because those afflicted with it believed themselves to be turned into wolves, dogs or cows." I have also not found any sources of Lycanthropy or Kuanthropy being a true medical condition.

Obviously, the Book of Daniel cannot be the sole source for this disease, because it merely describes the story of one man, never attributing his madness to a mental disorder, but to the punishment of God.

Apart from this book of werewolves, the word 'boanthropy' was apparently used in 'The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee', although in the discussion page it is mentioned that some words on that show are fictious. It is also used in this blog, but that appears to be a satirical piece.

Considering that this article was created in 2005 and still it has zero references, I think there is no reason to keep it. As far as I know, there exists not a single medical, psychological or otherwise scholarly article that describes the disease, and no cases are known from the last few millenia. Lindert (talk) 22:47, 11 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Note: This debate has been included in the list of Medicine-related deletion discussions.  -- TexasAndroid (talk) 14:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)


 * Delete. Clearly it is not a real disease but it might fall into the category of "diseases" imagined to exist in the unscientific past. If so, then the onus is on the authors to demonstrate that it is notable in that regard and that more than can be written about it than just its definition. Clearly I am not the first to observe that a Google search is not at all encouraging. The word is also in Wiktionary but not referenced to anything other than the Bible, which doesn't actually use the word. It is not in the OED at all, which you would expect if it had any real history. Most of the Google hits seem to refer back either to Wikipedia/Wiktionary or to the "Spelling Bee" competition. I have a nasty, although unprovable, suspicion that the Spelling Bee quiz setters may have got it from us via the "Random entry" button on Wiktionary. In short, this word may have what little currency it has mainly because we give credence to it. If so, that is a bad thing. The Wiktionary entry needs looking at too. --DanielRigal (talk) 15:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete, no evidence that such a disease exists, let alone that it has reliable sources. As Lindert says, if you believe the Daniel account, you reject this idea, because the text says nothing about a disease.  If we were to have an article about that passage, the deletion situation would be different (although it would probably still be nonnotable), but this isn't it.  Nyttend (talk) 13:12, 14 July 2009 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.