The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser. — 1855-07-31 (Liverpool, Merseyside, England)

SHOCEI,NI A- TERMINATION: TO A MARRIAGE IN FRANCE•-.  A FRIGZTRUL. case of hydrophobia is described in the Lyons journals. &.young farmer, named Peyron, about twenty-five years of age, in the department of the Rhine, was married a few weeks-ago to a neighbour's daughter. The young couple had been long attached to each other, but the parents of the soenr vhe bride had refused their consent on account of the strangeness of occasionallyconductwwaseuaep. raiyatavtgsof bmeianng, exemplaryc omwho. comparatively most and teligiblethe observed conduct.. His passion for the girl became at length so violent that he declared he could not exist without her, and his. and, after some mother, fearing from his manitter that he meditated suicide,, Rent to the parents of the young woman, entreaty, prevailed upon them to, gree to the match. Young' Peyron at once recovered his. spirits,. the young woman wm delighted, and the marriage was celebrated with all the rustic. pomp and ceremony common. in that part of the provinces, concluding with a grand dinner andthe inevitable ball. The gaieties were kept up until daylight, when the company separated. The new married couple. were lodged in one wing of the house, separated from the main building, but, in a short time after they had retired, cries were heard from the. nuptual chamber. At first they were unnoticed; but at length they match,nw njf .his,gth?m increased to fearful, shrieks, and the father and mother, alarmed, hastened to the room, followed by the farm servants. The cries were by the time they arrived changed to scarcely audible groans from the poor girl ; and on breaking open the door she was found in the agonies of death—her bosom torn open and lacerated in the most horrible manner, and the wretched husband in a fit of raving madness and covered with blood, having actually devoured a portion of the unfortunate girl's breast. A cry of horror burst from all present, and he was dragged from the room after a most violent resistance, it taking no less than six men to, hold him down. Aid was instantly sent for, and before the doctor could reach the spot the unhappy victim was no more. Young Peyron was put under treatment, and a strait waistcoat was attempted to be put upon him ; but his struggles and screams were such that the doctor, apprehensive that he would expire in the assistants' hands, ordered them to desist. The unfortunate man had by this time become so weak that he was easily conveyed to bed, and died at four o'clock in the afternoon of the same day without having for one moment recovered his consciousness. It was then recollected, in answer to searching questions by a physician, that somewhere about five years previously he had been bitten by a strange dog, and taken the usual precautions against hydrophobia ; but, although the dog was killed, it had never been satisfactorily shown that it was really mad ; and, no ill consequences resulting from the bite, his friends concluded that it would come to nothing, and the incident had been altogether forgotten. It was considered by the doctor that the circumstances preceding the marriage, and the excitement of the occasion itself, had roused the latent virus which had so long lain dormant in the blood, and led to the terrible outbreak of frenzy which had ended so tragically. On the medical report being laid before the authorities, the extraordinary nature of the case naturally excited much attention and considerable controversy—the opinions of the heads of the profession being, after full inquiry, that there was no hydrophobia whatever in the case, but rooted insanity, and that it was shown to exist by the occasional aberrations of the unfortunate young man as before-mentioned, and that his diseased temperament and too violent passions, powerfully acted on by the circumstances, led to the fatal consequences narrated above. This sad catastrophe has given rise to a fierce medical controversy in some of the professional journals on the nature of hydrophobia, from which it would appear that, although instances of remarkable cures of this frightful malady are often described in the journals, no authenticated account of its favourable termination is yet known in France.—Paris Paper.