You might think that the sentence "My cat is driving me mad" means that you're sick and tired of cleaning after your agitated animal.

But although it's hard to believe, the gentle feline sitting right now in a corner might inflict schizophrenia to you or your children.

Dr. Fuller Torrey, president of the Stanley Medical Research Institute, has found that people with schizophrenia were more likely to have had pet cats as young children, or their mothers kept the animals during their pregnancies.

According to the researcher, schizophrenia could be caused by a parasite found in the cats' excrements. Dr. Fuller Torrey is currently testing the efficiency of antibiotics used against the feline parasite Toxoplasma gondii to treat this mental illness.

"My wife thinks I'm probably ultimately going to be assassinated by cat lovers", Torrey told the Daily News yesterday. The researcher advises parents not to buy their children cats and to cover their sandboxes to prevent cats from using them as litter.

Schizophrenia is a major mental illness characterized by persistent defects in the perception or expression of reality. A person affected by this illness typically demonstrates grossly disorganized thinking, and may also experience delusions or auditory hallucinations.

According to the statistics, 2 million Americans are suffering from schizophrenia.