Richter's widely cited experiments with swimming rats (Psychosom. Med., 1957) were interpreted as showing that the affects of hopelessness and helplessness caused wild rats swimming in a cylinder to give up, enter a parasympathetically mediated withdrawal response, and allow themselves to drown. The present report raises worthwhile questions about Richter's interpretation of the actual cause of death of the high proportion of wild rats which succumbed in only a few minutes of swimming, when other rats habituated to the circumstances could survive for many hours. But because of limitations in both experimental design and interpretation of results, these questions are not answered satisfactorily.