Glasgow Courier. — 1855-07-28 (Glasgow, Strathclyde, Scotland)

SHOCKING TERMINATION TO A MARRIAGE IN FRANCE.  A frightful case of hydrophobia is described in the Lyons journals, which, if the facts are correctly 'dated, would go to prove that this fatal malady can remain in the system as long as four years without development. A 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 bride had refused their consent on account of the strangeness of conduct occasionally observed in theyoung man, who otherwisat was a most eligible match, his parents being comparatively well off, and the son himself generally of exemplary conduct. His passion for the girl became at length so violent that be declared he could not exist without her, and his mother, fearing from his manner that he meditated suicide, went to the parents of the young woman, and, after some entreaty, prevailed upon them to agree to the match. Young Peyron at once recovered his spirits, the young woman was 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 and the inevitable ball. The gaities were kept up until daylight, when the company separated. The newly married couple were lodged In one wing of the:farm-house, separated front the main building; but in a short time after they had retired cries were heard from the nuptial chamber. At first they were unnoticed; but at length they 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 front the poor girl; and on breaking, open the door bhe was found in the agonies of death—her bosom rn open and lacerated in the most horrible manner, and the wretched husband in a fit of raving niadness and covered with blood, having actually devoured a portion of the unfortunate girl's breast. A cry of horror burst forth from all present, and lie was dragged from the rosin 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 should expil in the assistants' hands, ordered them to desist. The unfortunate man had by this time become no 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 consequence resulting front 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 no tragically. On the medical report being laid before the authorities, the extraordinary nature of the case naturally excited much attention and considerable con. troversy—the opinions of the heads of the profession being, after full inquiry, that there was no hydrophohin 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, front which it would appear that, although instances of remarkable cures of this frightful malady are often desm Med in the journaly, no authenticated account of its favourable termination is yet known in France.