The author of this horrid warning rhyme was Heinrich Hoffmann, a German psychiatrist, in his book ‘Struwwelpeter’, published in 1845, and written to entertain his little son.
This sort of animal cruelty has been attributed to the lunatic Renfield in ‘Dracula’, but I think he had different motives. On the other hand, the real life ‘Jack the Ripper’ may have had such a childhood background according to Dr George Savage writing on ‘Homicidal Insanity’ for The Fortnightly Review in 1881.
I have known such children kick cats and dogs to death, or set light to them, or pour boiling water over them, the fiendish pleasure being increased if the young of the animals were thus reduced to starvation. The morally undeveloped child has been pointed out to me by several devout friends as a proof of the existence of the devil.
Savage and other ‘medico-psychologists’ of his time regarded this as a type of ‘moral insanity’, which is perhaps more apt than the modern ‘conduct disorder’ or, in adulthood, ‘severe antisocial personality disorder’ or ‘psychopathy’.
DRACULA FOR DOCTORS 