Month: January 2025

There can be no doubt that cats think a lot of themselves. They always take the best seat in the house – whether that be on your lap as you read, on the fresh laundry basket, or even on top of the radiator. They no doubt feel that they deserve this. But where does this high opinion of themselves stem from? Well, it all started long ago, on the banks of the River Nile…

Cats were worshipped as the earthly incarnations of Egyptian gods for more than 30 centuries. This perhaps started as they were used to catch vermin and kill venomous snakes. The Egyptian economy depended on grain, and the fact that cats could protect your hoarded food yielded them a special status in society. Gradually cats were accorded a special place in Egyptian religion, even coming to represent Ra – one of the most powerful gods, in the Book of the Dead. It is not uncommon to find representations of gods with cat heads in hieroglyphics. As an aside – one of Lecale’s own sons, the Rev Edward Hincks of Killyleagh was an early expert in deciphering these hieroglyphics.

The next step in the veneration of the cat was mummification. Egyptians wanted to travel into the afterlife with their feline companions, so they had them mummified! Tens of thousands of cat mummies have been found. One has even made it to our own shores, and is exhibited in the Ulster Museum, alongside the mummy of Takabuti. The techniques of mummification were identical to those used on their human “masters”.

Cats were protected by law in ancient Egypt. It was a serious offence to harm a cat, and this left a cultural legacy that persisted well into the time of Cleopatra. Indeed a Roman citizen was lynched in Egypt for harming a cat around the time Caesar invaded that country. So great was the respect that the Egyptians had for cats that their enemies heard of it, and used it against them. Cambyses II, the King of Persia, placed cats at the head of his army, dissuading the Egyptians from attacking.

With the coming of Christianity and then Islam, the veneration of the cat went into decline with the Egyptian population. The cat sanctuaries were abandoned, and thousands of mummified cats lay undiscovered and dusty with the desert sand until our own time. But an echo of the time cats were seen as gods is found in our own fondness for moggies today, and it is surely something that cats have never forgotten.

You may have heard the word “Chimera” in the news this week. A chimera occurs when an animal or person has the DNA of another animal contained in their body; mixed in among their own cells. The chimera in the news is a bundle of monkey and human cells in a test tube in a lab. The name “Chimera” (which is pronounced Khimeera) derives from the Greek legend, “Chimera and Bellerophon”. The Chimera was a hybrid creature composed of the head of a lion, the body of a goat and the tail of a serpent. The creature breathed fire and was a menace to mankind. Bellerophon was the hero who killed the Chimera, while riding on the winged horse, Pegasus.

Chimera’s can occur naturally. If two fertilised eggs merge in the womb, the resulting individual will be a chimera. This is sometimes known as having a “vanished twin”. It is actually the norm with marmoset monkeys Most marmoset twins are chimeras, having cells with different genetics in different organs.

Chimeras can of course be artificial, like the one in the news this week. One of the earliest artificial chimeras was created in a lab in Cambridge in the 1980s. It was an embryo composed of the cells of both a sheep and a goat – otherwise knows as, wait for it, a Geep! The embryo eventually developed into a new life – and a baby geep was born. It looked quite like you would expect – a cross between a sheep and a goat.

Bone marrow recipients are chimeras, as are organ transplant recipients. Folk who have been kind enough to donate their organs are life savers for this reason. Their cells and DNA enter the recipient, and start to work with the recipient’s body, producing the necessary functions that had been lost and so saving the recipient’s life.

So what’s the point of creating an artificial chimera? The supply of organs is one possible benefit. There is a worldwide shortage of organs for people in need of a transplant. At present the only source of these organs is other people. And it takes a huge amount of organisation, not to mention emotional capital to harvest organs from donors, and then transport them to the place where they are needed. Creating a chimera of say, human liver cells mixed with pig cells could result in an animal that contained a ready-made human liver. Taking things a step further, human liver cells could be bundled with a fast growing species in a lab to make a near artificial organ ready for transplant in weeks. In the future there could be warehouses of organs being grown near to hospital operating theatres, ready to be implanted as part of a routine operation list. This would reduce waste, waiting times and patient morbidity.

Like all new inventions, we need to tread carefully with artificial chimeras. They have the potential to revolutionise healthcare, expanding treatment horizons to levels that we can only dream of. However, we need to be mindful that approximately 60% of human infectious diseases are zoonosis – that is, they infect both animals and people. An obvious risk of combining human and animal cells, apart from ethical concerns, is that we facilitate new disease transfer between the species. We may need a new Bellerophon if we are creating a new chimera.

So we live in Lecale. But how many of us know what Lecale means? It comes from the Irish Leath Chathail – “Cathal’s half”. Cathal was a prince of the Dál Fiatach tribe, who were lords in this part of the world in the 6th Century AD. Downpatrick was their capital, centred on the Mound of Down, as we know it today. However, the Mound of Down has a different, older name. It was known in times past as “Rathkeltair” – the fort of the warrior Keltair. Keltair was an ancient Irish hero hailing from this part of the world. He is mentioned in the “Ulster Cycle” – the great epic story of warriors and battles that forms part of our heritage. It is from this cycle that we know of Cú Chulainn and the Tain.

So what does all of this historiography have to do with animals? Everything. As usual, most of our history is tied to the natural world. Folk in those days regarded their animals every bit as highly as we do. So Celtchar had two pet dogs. One was called Lúch Donn (brown mouse) and the other Dóelchú (possibly “sad hound”). They were very fierce, and only Keltair could handle them. Evidently irony was not lost on our ancestors, as “brown mouse” is an amusing name for a big dog!

I find it interesting that we do not know the names of many humans from that period of our history, but we do know the names of three dogs – the two above and of course “Cú Chulainn” – the hound of Ulster. It says much that as a culture we commit to paper the names of man’s best friend for time immemorial. I have yet to see the day when a dog named “brown mouse” is called into my consultation room, but when that day comes, I will be braced for a wolfhound!