The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1836-11-04 00:00:00

DISTRESSING CASE OF HYDROPHOBIA.

(Flom the Macclesfield Courier of Saturday.)
It is our duty t 3 relate a most distressing case of that most
awful malady to which human nature is subject, hydrophobia,
which has occurred in this neighbourhood during the present
week.

On Monday last a son of Mr. Priestnall, a respectable far-
mer at Butley, near this town, about 13 years of age, a fine
healthy boy, was taken ill at school with a general fever and
difficulty of swallowing. On his return home in the evening,
his parents engaged the attendance of Mr. Nightingale, of
Wilmslow, surgeon, hut no apprehensions of hydrophobia being
entertained, the case was treated as one of hysteria, until the
following morning, when Mr Bland, of Macclesfield, also saw
the boy, and the symptoms were then such as to leave no doubt
on his mind that the patient was labouring under a decided
attack of hydrophobia The boy was able to swallow; but not
without great effort; he complained of much confusion in his
head, and after taking any fluid, his eyes became glaring and
very prominent, with an appearance of obliquity of vision. A
large number of leeches were immediately applied at the back
of the neck, and slight opiates administered. In the evening
he expressed himself greatly relieved by this treatment, but the
difficulty of swallowing had become increased; and the slight-
est noise or appearance of water, or the approach of a candle
near him, threw him into dreadful convulsions ; he became
gradually worse during the night, and in his conscious inter-
vals he frequently requested his parents, who attended him with
the utmost anxiety, and whose agonized feelings cannot be de-
scribed, and the other persons who came near his bed, not to
approach too near him, least he might bite them, almost im-
mediately afterwards attempting to do so, during the paroxysms
of his dreadful malady. On the following morning he was
visited by Mr. Nightingale, Mr. Fleet, Mr. Lallemand, and
Mr. Bland, who, in consultation, deemed the case utterly be-
yond the reach of medical skill, the poor boy remaining in a
state of almost uninterrupted convulsions accompanied with
violent struggling, requiring the united efforts of several per-
sons to restrain him from doing injury to himself or those about
him; the saliva issuing front his mouth in considerable quan-
tities. He continued in this deplorable state until the after-
noon of Wednesday, when death terminated the excruciating
agonies which the poor boy endured, in about 48 hours from his
first attack.

The cause which led to this melancholy, and to those who
witnessed the case most heartrending event, was simply, we
are informed, as follows :—About four months ago young
Priestnall, in his rambles in the country, met a strange dog
near a brook, and with boy-like mischief endeavoured to force
the dog into the water; it however turned upon him and bit him
very slightly (a mere scratch) on the back of hisleft hand, but
the-wound was so trifling, that he did not make the occurrence
known at the time. The dog was, however, soon afterwards
seen by other persons, and suspicious of its being in a state of
madness arising, it was pursued and killed near Dean-row. It
would appear that the poor boy had afterwards some apprehen-
sions of danger, from the circumstance that on seeing a book
at school that treated on the subject of canine madness, he paid
Much attention to it, and, in the interval of his convulsions, he
inquired from the medical gentlemen whether excision of the
part, or the amputation of his limb, would not be desirable,
adding, that he had read of it in a book at school. The fatal
virus had however been then too deeply imbibed in the system
to allow the possibility_ of success from the remedy the poor boy
suggested. Whilst yet the deadly malady was working its fatal
progress, there were intervals of consciousness. "Oti one occa-
sion, when he heard it incidentally mentioned that the night
was very fine and light, and the moon at the full, he started up
and exclaimed, " Ah, people go mad at the full of the moon,"
and was instantly seized with violent convulsions.
The melancholy event has occasioned a considerable sensa-
tion in the neighbourhood of its occurrence, as much sympathy
is manifested towards the distressed parents.