Still it would be hard to surpass Skibbereen in the intensity and variety of its famine horrors.  Dr. Donovan, writing on the 2nd of December, says:  Take one day’s experience of a dispensary doctor.  It is that of a day no further off than last Saturday—­four days ago.  He then proceeds with the diary of that day:  his first case was that of Mrs. Hegarty, who applied to him for a subscription towards burying her husband and child; the doctor had not prescribed for them, and he asked why he had not been applied to; the answer was as in other cases—­they had no disease, and he could be of no use to them.  His second case was that of a boy named Sullivan, who came to him for some ointment for his father.  This application was somewhat out of the usual course, ointment being a peculiarly useless thing as a remedy against famine.  There was, however, need of it.  The boy’s grandmother had died of fever some days before, and his father and mother, with whom she had resided, took it from her.  The neighbours were afraid to go into the fever-house, but some of them, kindly and charitably, left food outside the door, and candles to wake the corpse.  The mother struggled out of bed to get the candles in order to light them.  She succeeded in doing so, but from weakness she was unable to stand steadily, so she reeled and staggered towards where the corpse was laid out, and with the lighted candles set the winding sheet on fire:  the thatch caught the flame; the cabin was burned down, and the parents of this miserable boy were rescued with the utmost difficulty.  They got more or less burned, of course, and the ointment was therefore required for them.  Having escaped death from fire, they almost suffered death from cold, as they were left four hours without the shelter of a roof on a bitter December day, all being afraid to admit them lest they should catch the contagion.  The doctor’s third case happened at midnight, being called on duty to the workhouse at that hour.  It was about a mile from the town—­something less perhaps.  Halfway on his journey he found a man trying to raise a poor woman out of the dyke.  He went to his assistance, and found the woman paralyzed with cold, and speechless.  Locked in her arms, which were as rigid as bars of iron, was a dead child, whilst another with its tiny icy fingers was holding a death-grip of its mother’s tattered garment.  Her story was short and simple, which she was able to tell next day:  she had made an effort to reach the workhouse, but sank exhausted where she was discovered.

After a while the effects of famine began to manifest themselves in the sufferers by a swelling of the extremities.  Perhaps the severe cold caused this or increased it.  However that may be, experience soon taught the people that this puffy unnatural swelling was a sure sign of approaching dissolution.