An Irishwoman’s Diary on rabies and a mother’s dilemma

After police shot dead the dog that attacked two-year-old Paddy Cullinane, an order came from the local inspector that the dog’s head be sent to the Veterinary College in Dublin to be tested for rabies.

It was the summer of 1898 in the townland of Ballyquin in rural Co Waterford. Alerted by her son’s screams, his mother Mary made frantic efforts to fight off the dog, and she eventually freed Paddy’s hand from its jaws and carried the child into the safety of the house.

After the attack Mary and her son were treated in Rathgormack by the local medical officer, Dr Dwan. He cauterised the boy’s wounds with caustic soda, surely an additional ordeal for the already traumatised Paddy. Having tended to Mary and her son, Dr Dwan reported the case to the Board of Guardians of the Poor Law Union in nearby Carrick-on-Suir, which at that time had a public health responsibility. However, until it had the definitive results of the tests on the dog’s head from Dublin, the board could not take any action.

Test results

The test results arrived, confirming rabies in the dog. The sanitary officer for the district, a Mr Power, went immediately to Mrs Cullinane to start the arrangements to send mother and child to the Pasteur Institute in Paris, the only place in the world where such cases could be treated successfully.

Mary received Mr Power, heard his news, but declined to go to Paris. No doubt Mr Power was taken aback by her decision but it must have been obvious to him that Mary was about seven months pregnant and with three young children.

Daunting journey

Setting off at short notice for Paris with a two-year-old child would be a daunting undertaking for a young mother even today, but immensely more challenging in 1898 for a 25-year-old pregnant mother who at the time had hardly travelled much beyond her own parish, and who, according to family memory, was unable to read or write.

Young Paddy was showing no ill effects from the attack and was indeed later described in a report as a “fine healthy child”. Mr Power had to return to the board seemingly having failed in his mission.

However some weeks later the Cullinane case was again before the board. Mary had changed her mind and was apparently now anxious to get her son to Paris for treatment. In response to her request for assistance the board had summoned Paddy and his mother to appear before them.

The board weighed up the issues and the most obvious concern was that Mary was within six weeks of giving birth again and this journey would take her and her child through Ireland, England and on to France by rail and ship, followed by an extended stay in Paris.

But there was no place other than the Pasteur Institute where a person suspected of contracting rabies might be successfully treated. Mr Britton, a board member, summed up the feelings of the meeting when he said, “Should anything serious turn out to the child, as a result of the bites he received, we would be open to very great censure.”

The meeting decided that Mary and her child would begin their journey to Paris on Monday, August 27th. A cheque for £20 was written to cover expenses and a couple of days later they boarded the train to Waterford, beginning their journey to Paris.

Paddy’s treatment in the Pasteur Institute began on September 1st and continued for 15 days. Mother and child then returned to Ballyquin where Mary gave birth shortly afterwards to her fourth child, Bridget.

Paddy, my granduncle, lived until 1978, almost a full 80 years after his treatment in Paris.

Mary, his mother and my great-grandmother, also lived to old age at her home in Old Grange, Co Waterford, where she died in 1957 at 83.

In 1898, the year Paddy was bitten, four people died from rabies in Ireland, the last recorded rabies deaths here.

Measures

In 1897, the Disease of Animals Act had been updated, requiring all dogs to be muzzled, with stray and unmuzzled dogs to be seized and destroyed. The figures show that these measures were effective in tackling rabies here. By 1902 the disease was officially considered eradicated in Ireland.

Rabies is now a preventable disease. But today, World Rabies Day 2015, the World Health Organisation reports that tens of thousands still die from rabies annually, mostly children in Africa and Asia. Yet another disease of poverty.