The practice of horse medicine is indeed so completely revolutionised, that gas, steam, and the chemistry of Sir Humphrey Davy, are resorted to for the morbid affections of that animal in common with those of a nobleman. The horse, now, regularly takes his hot bath like my lord and lady, James’ powders, refined liquorice, musk, calomel, and laudanum, with the most “elegant extracts” and delicate infusions. As if Gulliver were a prophet, he literally described, in the reign of Queen Anne, both the English horse and the Irish peasant as they exist at the present moment. If the lodging, clothing, cleaning, food, medicine, and attendance of the modern Hoynhymm, be contrasted with the pig-sty, rags, filth, neglect, and hunger of the Yahoo, it must convince any honest neutral that Swift (that greatest of Irishmen) did not overcharge his satire. The sum lavished upon the care of one Hoynhymm for a single day, with little or nothing to do, is more (exclusive of the farrier) than is now paid to five Irish Yahoos for twelve hours’ hard labour, with to feed, clothe, lodge, and nourish themselves, and probably five wives and twenty or thirty children, for the same period, into the bargain.
A few very curious cases may elucidate our ancient practice of cure—a practice, I believe, never even heard of in any other part of Europe. The bite of a mad dog was to the Irish peasantry of all things the most puzzling and terrific; and I am sure I can scarcely guess what Doctor Morgan will think of my veracity when I state the two modes by which that horrible mania was neutralised or finally put an end to.
When the bite of a dog took place, every effort was made to kill the beast, and if they succeeded, it was never inquired whether he actually was, or (as the colloughs used to say) pretended to be mad: his liver was immediately taken out, dried by the fire till quite hard, then reduced to powder, and given in frequent doses with a draught of holy or blessed water, to the patient for seven days. If it happened that the saliva did not penetrate the sufferer’s clothes, or if the dog was not actually mad, it was then considered that the patient was cured by drinking the dog’s liver and holy water;—and if it so happened that the bite set him barking, then the priest and farrier told them it was the will of God that he should bark, and they were contented either to let him die at his leisure, or send him to heaven a little sooner than was absolutely necessary.
The herbs of the colloughs were sometimes successfully resorted to; whether accidental or actual preventives or antidotes, it is not easy to determine: but when I detail the ulterior remedy to cure the hydrophobia in Ireland, or at least to render it perfectly innoxious, I am well aware that I shall stand a good chance of being honoured by the periodicals with the appellation of a “bouncer,” as on occasion of the former volumes: but the ensuing case, as I can personally vouch for the fact, I may surely give with tolerable confidence.
KILLING WITH KINDNESS.
Illustration of the Irish horror of hydrophobia—Thomas Palmer, of Rushhall, Esquire, magistrate and land-agent, &c.—A substantial bill of fare—Dan Dempsey, of the Pike, is bitten by a mad dog—Application to the magistrate for legal permission to relieve him of his sufferings—Mode of relief proposed—Swearing scholars—Permission obtained—Dan regularly smothered, by way both of cure and preventive—Fate of Mr. Palmer himself—Allen Kelly, of Portarlington—“New Way to Pay Old Debts.”
Such a dread had the Irish of the bite of a mad dog, that they did not regard it as murder, but absolutely as a legal and meritorious act, to smother any person who had arrived at an advanced stage of hydrophobia. If he made a noise similar to barking, his hour of suffocation was seldom protracted.
In this mode of administering the remedy, it was sometimes difficult to procure proper instruments; for they conceived that by law the patient should be smothered between two feather-beds,—one being laid cleverly over him, and a sufficient number of the neighbours lying on it till he was “out of danger.”
The only instance I am able to state from my own knowledge occurred about the year 1781. Thomas Palmer, of Rushhall, in Queen’s County, was then my father’s land-agent, and at the same time a very active and intelligent magistrate of that county. He was, gratis, an oracle, lawyer, poet, horse—cow—dog and man doctor, farmer, architect, brewer, surveyor, and magistrate of all work. He was friendly and good-natured, and possessed one of those remarkable figures now so rarely to be seen in society. I feel I am, as usual, digressing;—however, be the digression what it may, I cannot deny myself the pleasure of depicting my old friend, and endeavouring to render him as palpable to the vision of my reader as he is at this moment to my own.
Palmer was one of that race of giants for which the rich and extensive barony of Ossory, in Queen’s County (now the estate of the Duke of Buckingham), was then and had long been celebrated. His height was esteemed the middle height in that county—namely, about six feet two inches; he was bulky without being fat, and strong, though not very muscular. He was, like many other giants, split up too much, and his long dangling limbs appeared still longer from their clothing, which was invariably the same:—a pair of strong buck-skin breeches, never very greasy, but never free from grease; half jack-boots; massive, long silver spurs, either of his own or of somebody’s grandfather’s; a scarlet waistcoat with long skirts; and a coat with “all the cloth in it.” These habiliments rendered him altogether a singular but not other than respectable figure. His visage made amends for both his outré boots and breeches; it was as well calculated as could be for a kind-hearted, good-humoured, convivial old man. His queue wig, with a curl at each side, had his grizzle hair combed smoothly over the front of it; and he seldom troubled the powder-puff, but when he had got the “skins whitened,” in order to “dine in good company.” He was the hardest-goer either at kettle or screw (except Squire Flood of Roundwood) of the whole grand-jury, for whose use he made a new song every summer assize: and it was from him I heard the very unanswerable argument, “that if a man fills the bottom of his glass, there can be no good reason why he should not also fill the top of it; and if he empties the top of his glass, he certainly ought in common civility to pay the bottom the same compliment:”—no man ever more invariably exemplified his own theorem.