There are diseases that sparked off the legendary werewolf stories, according to medical science. The main cause of the amount of mass werewolf sightings in centuries past might be caused by a number of terrible diseases and pandemics.
One of them is rabies. The legend of the werewolf causing a human being to become a werewolf through an attack or a bite, a telltale sign similar to how a rabies infection is passed from animal to human. Rabies is a lyssavirus (named after Lyssa, a spirit of rage in Greek mythology). The earliest symptoms of rabies is anxiety, hallucinations, fever and vomiting. After a few days, the infected will become aggressive, paralyzed, foaming saliva, hydrophobia and hallucinating. Rabies is a fatal disease although it's treatable at the beginning stage.
Another disease responsible for werewolf activity (and this also includes vampires too) is porphyria. The blood disorder that makes the person with porphyria to have really sensitive skin to sunlight. It has an effect on the nervous system, causing pain, nausea, weakness, paranoia, discoloured urine, high blood pressure and seizures.
Other known diseases that triggered off werewolf mania include psychosis, a mental illness that is properly termed as clinical lycanthropy. There is also congenital hypertrichosis lanuginosa, a genetic disorder that causes someone to grow a lot of hair. There are some poisons that cause hallucinations too. Ergotism might've been responsible for mass werewolf sightings in Europe during the Middle Ages. Ergot poisoning happens after eating infected grains and cereals in bread and porridge, that was mainly consumed by the peasantry. Such ergot poisoning played a part during the witchcraft events at Salem. Deadly nightshade was used a lot in ancient times, during rituals as a herb to assist with astral travel, and it caused a lot of hallucinations and visions.
She Wolf Night team
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