The deadly health scare that left people across Greater Manchester suddenly paralysed

At the very beginning of the 20th century, doctors were baffled by high numbers of patients suddenly experiencing a range of disturbing, and often deadly, symptoms.

Over the course of around four months, people in Manchester and Salford began experiencing weakness and pains in their limbs, 'pins and needles' in their hands and feet, numbness - and in severe cases - paralysis. The Manchester Courier at the time reported more women seemed to be affected than men but they all seemed to have one thing in common.

Originally misdiagnosed as alcoholic neuropathy - a neurological disorder caused by chronic alcoholism - many of the people who were affected were described as being moderate drinkers. One of the victims who sadly died of the mysterious condition was Alice Riley.

Aged just 38, newspapers at the time reported she had complained to her husband weeks earlier of what she thought was "rheumatism in all her joints". A week before her death, her husband described her condition becoming much worse as she lost the use of her feet and legs and "sometimes seemed as if she were out of her mind."

One of the strange symptoms Alice was reported to have experienced was a change in her complexion, turning darker, something often associated with arsenic poisoning. Two more women, Margaret McCabe, 52, and Jane Dyer, 40, who both worked at Crumpsall Workhouse had also died and were later discovered to have arsenic in their system

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But they were far from the only ones. By the end of 1900, over 6,000 people would be affected by arsenic poisoning and claim the lives of around 70 people living in the North West, with Manchester being the