Johnston children bitten by rabid dog

Cranston High School yearbook photo of Carlton Steere
Cranston High School yearbook photo of Carlton Steere
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Back in the 19th and early 20th centuries, few things were as terrifying as hearing a cry of “Mad dog!” Wild-eyed canines, yelping and foaming at the mouth were to be feared as much as Satan. A bite from a rabid dog always meant a painful death was going to ensue.

In April of 1922, three young residents of Hedley Street in Johnston were playing in their yards when a dog making its way down the street stopped and bit all four children along with a friend one of them had visiting. Carlton Kemp Steere, the 5-year-old son of carpenter Byron Steere was one of the children bitten. Arthur Rushmore, the 11-year-old son of machinist Roland Rushmore was also viciously assaulted, along with 6-year-old Dorothy Beckett, the daughter of building caretaker William Becket. Four-year-old Charles Duby, the son of wallpaperer and painter Charles Duby was bitten as well while he played with his friends on Hedley Street that day. The vicious dog was killed soon after its terrifying attack on the children. Its head was removed and sent to a physician at Brown University so that its brain could be examined for signs of rabies infection.

Rabies, once known as hydrophobia, is caused by the lyssavirus, which is carried in the salivary glands of the infected animal. The word “rabies” is derived from the Latin word meaning “madness” and the illness is spread through bites and scratches. Symptoms of rabies may show up within two days of becoming infected, or take several years to produce any noticeable symptoms depending on how long it takes the virus to work its way into the central nervous system. Fever, sore throat, vomiting, paralysis and death eventually result due to severe inflammation of the brain.

A person afflicted with rabies becomes terrified of water – hence the term hydrophobia. The production of saliva is greatly increased when one is affected with rabies. However, the sight of water is unbearable to the afflicted and any attempt to make a person with rabies drink water results in the victim suffering painful throat spasms.

The parents of the children who had been bitten
by the dog in Johnston all decided to put their children on the Pasteur Treatment. It is essential to start rabies treatment even before knowing if the animal attacker is infected as, once symptoms begin, death is certain.

The Pasteur Treatment was the result of four years of research by French scientist Louis Pasteur and his colleagues. It consisted of a series of daily injections of the rabies virus obtained from the brain tissue of a rabid animal, with the initial doses being weak and the latter doses being stronger in order to stimulate the human body’s antibodies. Pasteur tested the treatment on rabbits – first infecting them and then extracting the virus from the back of their heads and adding formaldehyde to it. Pasteur’s first human subject in his rabies research was 9-year-old Joseph Meister who had been bitten by a rabid dog two days earlier. Beginning on July 6, 1885, Pasteur injected the boy with a 14-day series of shots composed of rabbit spinal cord suspensions containing a progressively inactivated rabies virus. Meister recovered from rabies and the world realized a major advancement had just been made in the world of science and medicine. Meister later worked at the Pasteur Institute in France as a caretaker. Ten days after the Germans occupied Paris, he committed suicide.

On April 16, 1922, the Brown University physician who examined the detached head of the dog which had bitten the four children in Johnston, called to inform the Johnston chief of police that the dog had indeed been infected with rabies.

The Pasteur Treatment is still used in many countries but the United States has moved on to a safer and more potent vaccine, one in which cell cultures are combined with hyperimmune globulin. Presently, less than ten people in the United States die of rabies each year, compared to the rate of 100 fatalities annually at the turn of the 20th century.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.

  

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