A Discourse on the Dammed Art of Lycanthropia. 1692Despite huge advancements in the field of science in the seventeenth century by such figures as Isaac Newton, books about fabled creatures were extremely popular; a juxtaposition existed between superstition and science. Alongside these new discoveries in mathematics, optics, and astronomy, there still lay in the shadows the existence of mythological creatures, demons, witches, werewolves and a blending of magic and reality. Combining the belief in witchcraft and shapeshifting (Lycanthropia), ‘A Discourse on the Dammed Art of Lycanthropia’, borrows in part its title from the 1618 work ‘A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft’, written by the Puritan movement leader and English cleric William Perkins (1558–1602). The persecution of werewolves and the associated folklore is an integral part of the "witch-hunt" phenomenon, which resulted in an estimated 70,000 to 100,000 executions.