Translated from an account by Pascual Segura - Official Chronista.
Bigastro is a place sculpted by the history of its territory and
its people. History of their achievements, marked by the myths and
echoes of the past, but also of their misfortunes, which their
longest-lived neighbours never forgot and that they remember with a
calm voice, a firm look and a sad story.
There are stories that, because of their amazement, incongruity or
rarity, seem impossible. And I will not deny it, I also thought that
this story never happened, that arose from the imagination of a
neighbour who in another century fantasized the story to the
astonishment of his neighbours, but no. History always surprises,
especially when the facts are proven, and it is that after the
pertinent investigation I can assure that the legend of the beheading
has little of legend, because we are facing a reality. A real fact
that I have documented today, and that happened like this:
Shortly before the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 36,
the town of Bigastro, governed by Mayor José Aureliano Díaz Ortuño,
was finalizing some infrastructure that would improve the lives of
its neighbours, such as the Unamuno unitary schools, which
contributed to Great measure to your educational progress. Important
works were also carried out in some streets of the town, such as San
Pascual Street and San Joaquin, which were renovated with rock
extracted from La Pedrera. In addition, the expansion of the current
municipal cemetery took place, by the master mason José Grau, who
built several niches for eternal rest of his neighbours. In turn, the
carpenter Enrique Brotons placed the last slats on the newly
installed wooden benches in the old Republic Square, now Constitution
Square.
It was 1934, and while the session
was finalizing the celebrations in time to commemorate the Republic
Day - appointment of a party commission, hiring the band, gunpowder
request, etc. - a seemingly daily event managed to shake the
foundations of tranquillity from the neighbourhood. Nothing
extraordinary seemed to have happened, since a dog had bitten a
neighbour, but it is that the animal was infected, possibly from the
disease of rabies, and of course, all the alarms went off, because in
addition to not being the only infected animal, The life of the
neighbour was in danger.
The rabies virus was and is a disease that is present in all the
continents of our planet, being one of the most recognized and feared
diseases throughout history, and it is not for less, because it is
spread rapidly through A simple bite.
The misfortune caught the authorities of the town hall by
surprise, who, with the advice of the town veterinarian, decided to
take action on the matter: they killed the dog and cut off his head.
"Dead the dog, the rabies is gone". But what about the
head? Why decapitate the animal?
Well no, it was not a whim, and that was the protocol to follow
for this type of accident. When an animal infected with rabies was
suspected, it was first killed, then cut off its head. The dog's body
remained in Bigastro, usually burned, but the head had to be
transported to the city of Alicante, where the Provincial Institute
of Hygiene did the relevant tests to confirm whether or not he was
infected by the rabies virus.
So the animal's head was cut, deposited inside a sack and handed
to Antonio Escobedo, ordinance-watchman of the Bigastrense town hall,
so that on January 8, 1934 he moved to the Provincial Institute of
Hygiene of Alicante, where the affected neighbour also had to move,
to receive the appropriate treatment for having been bitten by the
dog.
The unfortunate accident caused the town hall to work on the
elaboration of censuses of dogs in the municipality, where the
vaccinated dogs were recorded. And those who were not, notification
to its owner that he had to face the payment of the corresponding
sanction. And on suspicion of infection, death of the dog and
decapitation.
Decapitations
that were repeated on April 1 of the same year 1934, when Bigastro's
neighbours suffered new bites from dogs infected with the rabies
virus, causing new transfers of the ordinance-watchman, who had to
travel to the city of Alicante carrying new cut heads.
