| Description Of Item | Notes from the collection of Thomas Laycock on the topic of death from fright or from fear, and the health effects of terror, fear, anxiety and grief. Consists of handwritten notes with newspaper cuttings pasted in on each page.
The first page contains five cuttings, and short handwritten captions for each.
The first cutting, titled ‘Death From Fright’, details the case of 19-year-old Priscilla May, who died of ‘obscure disease of the brain and hysteria’ after becoming frightened when a practical joke made her believe she had seen a ghost. The earliest versions of this article were found to be published on 29 January 1864, but the exact source of this cutting is unknown.
The next cutting is titled ‘A Bird at a Battle’ and details a story of a small bird who perched on the shoulder of a gunman during a battle at ‘Nickajack’ (an area in the Appalachian foothills in East Tennessee and Northern Alabama). The article on the other side of the cutting places the publication date to circa September 1864, but the exact date and source of the cutting could not be confirmed.
Below this cutting is pasted another detailing the behaviours of birds and other wildlife during a battle at Stone River (likely the Battle of Stones River, which took place in Tennessee between December 1862 and January 1863). The source of the cutting is unknown.
The next cutting details the death ‘from fright’ of a young woman after a fire broke out in the house adjoining hers in London. The article appears to be from the 7 May 1864 issue of the Yorkshire Gazette.
The next cutting concerns the 1864 explosion of a gunpowder depot in Erith (an area in south-east London). The article is mainly concerned with the effects of the explosion on the local animal population. The type and formatting of this article suggests it may be from the same publication as the ‘Death From Fright’ and ‘A Bird at a Battle’ articles detailed above, but the source of all three cuttings remain unknown.
Overleaf, there is another cutting of an article concerning the bodyweights of male and female prisoners.
The following page contains handwritten notes on the effects of terror, fear, grief and anxiety. Two small newspaper cuttings have been pasted in. The first details the story of a 9-year-old boy whose arm was bitten and mutilated by a lioness in Toulouse. The earliest version of this article found was published in the 22 November 1867 issue of the Western Daily Press (of Yeovil), but the exact source of this cutting could not be found. The second cutting details the case of a man in Manchester who died ‘from fright’ after being bitten by a dog he believed to be suffering from hydrophobia (rabies). The source of the cutting is unknown. |