Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 45, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1881 — Horrors of Hydrophobia. [ARTICLE]

Horrors of Hydrophobia.

New York sped d. A case of death from liydrophobiq. occurred this morning on Jersey City heights. The victim was Ida May Drayton, three years and seven months old. On May 22, while the girl was out walking, a dog sprang at, her and inserted his teeth in the upper part of her nose, but without making any more serious wound than a slight abrasion of the skin. The child was greatly frightened, however, and hastened home at once. When she informed her parents of the occurrence they took her to a doctor’s office, and the doctor cautarized the wound,which healed in a few nays. In the , meantime the dog was captured and shot by the police, not, however, until he had bitten an officer’s hand. The* animal at the time displayed no symptoms of rabies. Last Friday night the child came in from the street where she had been playing with some other children, and complained to her mother of feeling sick. Mrs. Drayton thought she might have been slightly affected by’ the heat, or that it was some childish ailment which would soon pass away. When, however, Ida was seized in the evening with paroxysms, Mrs. Drayton became alarmed • and hastily summond Dr. Wilkinson, who at once recognized symptoms of byrdopohbia. She displayed a most determined aversion to liquids of any kind; in fact the sight of any liquid threw her into a paroxysm,"and seemed to increase her sufferings. A mirror which she could see from her bed had the same effect upon her as the sight of water, and it had to be removed. At times she would bark Jlike a dog and snap her teeth together. The child’s sufferings increased as time passed. Dr. Wilkinson says he never saw anything so frightful in all his experience. He called Dr. B. A. Watson and Dr. Forman in consultation, and they agreed that his treat men tof the case was the best that was known to medical science. Dr. Wilkinson continued to administer urari, which is supposed'to neutralize the poison taken * into the patient’s system, but it had no effect. The child lingered in great agony until this morning.