There is no cure for this disease when once the symptoms show
themselves. A variety of remedies have from time to time been advertised
by quacks. The "Ormskirk Medicine," at one time, was much in vogue; it
had its day, but it did not cure the disease, nor, as far as I know, did
it mitigate any of its symptoms. With regard to the affection of the
mind itself in this disease, it does not appear that the patients are
deprived of reason; some have merely, by the dint of resolution,
conquered the dread of water, though they never could conquer the
convulsive motions which the contact of liquids occasioned; while this
resolution has been of no avail, for the convulsions and other symptoms
increasing, have almost always destroyed the unhappy sufferers.
--_Abernethy's Lectures_.