Rabies created fear because it was a disease that seemed able to turn people into raging beasts. The Eagle’s account was, in essence, a folk tale about mad dogs and the thin dividing line between human and animal. Variants of the rabid groom story had been told and retold in English language newspapers in North America since at least the beginning of the 18th century, and they continued to appear as late as the 1890s. My new book, “ Mad Dogs and Other New Yorkers: Rabies, Medicine, and Society in an American Metropolis, 1840-1920,” explores the hidden meanings behind the ways people talked about rabies. It was essentially a werewolf narrative: The mad dog’s bite caused a hideous metamorphosis, which transformed its human victim into a nefarious monster whose vicious sexual impulses led to obscene and loathsome violence. The Eagle described the episode matter-of-factly as “a sad and distressing case of hydrophobia,” or, in today’s parlance, rabies.īut the account read like a Gothic horror story.
What could have caused this horrifying incident? “It was then recollected, in answer to searching questions by a physician,” that the groom had previously “been bitten by a strange dog.” The passage of madness from dog to human seemed like the only possible reason for the grisly turn of events. Her husband, after “a most violent resistance,” also expired. People quickly arrived to find “the poor girl… in the agonies of death - her bosom torn open and lacerated in a most horrible manner, and the wretched husband in a fit of raving madness and covered with blood, having actually devoured a portion of the unfortunate girl’s breast.” Shortly after the newlyweds withdrew to consummate their bond, “fearful shrieks” came from their quarters. The parents eventually consented, and the marriage took place. The story came from the French countryside, where the woman’s parents had initially prevented the couple’s engagement “on account of the strangeness of conduct sometimes observed in the young man,” although he “otherwise was a most eliible match.” In 1855, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported on the gruesome murder of a bride by her new husband.
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