Copy 1

On superstitions connected with the history and practice of medicine and surgery / By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew.

  • Pettigrew, Thomas Joseph, 1791-1865.
Date:
1844
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On superstitions connected with the history and practice of medicine and surgery / By Thomas Joseph Pettigrew. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    there was no danger of their being guilty of so great an act of cruelty; but it was difficult to pacify her, and when put to bed she passed a restless night. On the following day she had fever, during which she frequently exclaimed, “Do not put me in the cellar.””, The fourth day after, she was taken to Sir A. Cooper, in a high state of fever, with delirium, frequently muttering, “ Pray don’t put me in the cellar.’ When Sir Astley inquired the reason, he found that the parents had learnt the punishment to which she had been subjected. He ordered what was likely to relieve her, but she died in a week after this unfeeling conduct. Another case from the same authority may here be cited. It is the case of a child, ten years of age, who wanted to write her exercise, and, to scrape her slate pencil, went into the school in the dark to fetch her knife, when one of her schoolfellows burst from behind the door to frighten her. She was much terrified, and her head ached. On the following day she became deaf, and on the next, so much so as not to hear the loudest talking. Sir Astley saw her three months after this had happened, and she continued in the deplorable state of deafness. Platerus* relates a case of fatal convulsions produced by terror. Some young girls went one day a little way out of town to see a person who had been executed, and who was hung in chains. One of them threw several stones at the gibbet, and, at last, struck the body with such violence as to make it move; at which the girl was so much terrified, that she imagined the dead person was alive, came down from the gibbet, and ran after her. She hastened home, and not being able to conquer the idea, fell into strong convulsions and died. * Observ. lib. 1. p. 36.