Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 5 September 1884 — HYDROPHOBIA IN ALABAMA. [ARTICLE]

HYDROPHOBIA IN ALABAMA.

Thirty-two Negroes, a Herd of Mules, and Several Dogs Attacked with the Dread Disease. [Eufaula (Ala.) telegram.] People are greatly excited in this section over the wholesale spread of pronounced hydrophobia on the plantation of Punch Doughtie, the freaks of whose mad mule were telegraphed day before yesterday. Dr. E. B. Johnson has just returned from the Doughtie plantation, where he had been summoned to attend the sudden sickness. He found thirty-two persons suffering with a disease which he at once pronounced to be hydrophobia in a mild form. All are negroes. Three of them are very sick — one in delirium and so low that the Doctor says he is liable to die at any time. Over three weeks ago a hog bitten by a dog died on Doughtie’s plantation, and the carcass was given to the negroes to make soap-grease. Instead of using it for this purpose, however, thirty-two negroes on the place and in its vicinity ate fresh pork, with the result stated. Mr. Doughtie says that July 15 one of his dogs went mad and bit a mule and several hogs. Aug. 13 the first hog died and was eaten by the negroes as stated. Two more died Aug. 13, one on the 22dand one on the 27th, and all were eaten except the last, by which time the disease had appeared. The mule first exhibited symptoms of madness on the nineteenth day after being bitten. Eleven days after the first hog was eaten ten of the parties were taken sick. Two days ago another dog was discovered to be mad and was killed after having bitten another mule. The first dog that went mad disappeared, and the whole neighborhood is in terror lest he went among the stock—cattle and hogs—throughout the county before dying, if he is yet dead. A few days ago when the symptoms broke out in a mule, Mr. Doughtie rode out, at the request of a field hand, to inspect the condition of the animal. On reaching the pasture where a dozen mules were the animal Mr. Doughtie was riding neighed, which attracted the attention of the other animals, and the sick one particularly, which immediately rushed on the mule and rider and seized the saddle of the animal with his teeth. Mr. Doughtie dismounted and succeeded in loosening the mad mule’s hold, but no sooner was this done than the influriated beast turned upon hie owner, who fled for his life, pursued by the mule. There was a desperate race of a quarter of a mile through undergrowth, and Mr. Doughtie only saved himself by dodging around saplings. A small stretch of clearing intervened between the woods and the hquse, and the terrified man took a life and death chonce on making it. Before leaving the woods the mule had bitten a piece of Mr. Doughtie’s coat, and, while maneuvering around the tree, the animal bit himself savagely in several places, tearing out a mouthful of flesh each time. The race for the house was a close one, and just as Mr. Doughtie reached the top of the fence the mule overtook him on a dead run, but instead of reaching his victim, struck his head against a fence-post in a wild rush and was knocked senseless. The mule was afterward killed by Mr. Doughtie. It is now reported that the whole herd of mules are affected, and will doubtless spread the disease among other animals in the neighborhood. The community is at a loss how to arrest the disease.