Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 22, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 25 January 1894 — DREADFUL HYDROPHOBIA [ARTICLE]

DREADFUL HYDROPHOBIA

IS claiming victims in NEWTON COUNTY. a The biting of the wife and child of Cyrus Brunton, near Morocco, by a rabid dog, was mentioned some time ago. Saturday the child, a boy of about 7 years, died of that most dreadful of diseases, hydrophobia, and on Monday the mother was reported as showing strong symptoms of its approach. Some 5 or 6 weeks ago a strange dog attacked Mr. Brunton’s hogs. Mrs. Brunton and the little boy ran out doors to see what the trouble was, when suddenly the dog bounded over the fence and attacked the boy, bitting him through the wrist. Mrs. Brunton ran to the boy’s assistance and was bitten through the finger Turpentine was applied to the wounda and within a day or two a small piece of a mad-stone owned in the neighborhood. Later a mad-stone owned at Chicago Heights, we believe, was applied Without effect, and the owners thought the dog had not been mad.

Soon after the bitten hog went mad and died. The woman and child, and also Mr. Brunton, who bad gotten some of the froth from the hog upon a sore on his face, then all went to a Chicago hospital and took the Pasteur treatment for hydrophobia. It was twenty-eight days after they were bitten, and probably too late. They returned from Chicago last Wednesday, and on Friday the boy was taken, dying Saturday, as above stated. Whether he died as hydrophobia victims usually' do, we have not learned; it is said however, that those who die of the disease after taking the Pasteur treatment do not suffer as they otherwise would. Let us hope that it was so in this case. The dog that bit the Bruntons went to “Old Tom Barker’s” place and bit a number of hunting dogs. These were all killed but two, and these two afterwards went mad, and one was shot while rushing to attack Mr. Barker’s grand-son and the other when attacking his son.