Today when we think of domestic cats, we recall the familiar hearthside companion and the mischievous playmate. It is difficult to comprehend that in the past the animal has played a fundamental role in the development of European and Western civilization. The human relationship to the cat has been important for most of the last four millennia. Domesticated cats were the bulwark of Western societies' defence against rodents and the 35 so dangerous diseases they carry, including typhus and the bubonic plague. Cats were also important religious symbols for the goddess Artemis of the Greeks,...