Rabies is a zoonosis, or zoonotic disease, transmitted from animals to humans. It is caused by viruses of the Lyssavirus genus. After entering the body through a wound, they travel along nerve fibers to the brain, causing significant neurological changes. Affected individuals (both humans and animals) appear to have lost control of their bodies and minds (symptoms include difficulty moving, seizures, salivation, hypersensitivity to stimuli, increased aggression, and hydrophobia).
It would not be an exaggeration to say that of all zoonoses, rabies has left the greatest mark on human history. It occurs almost everywhere in the world, has been with us since time immemorial, and mentions of it (matching the symptoms) appear in texts from ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece, and Rome. It was a common, incurable disease that drastically affected the patient’s behavior, and above all, without exception, fatal, which is why it inspired immense fear.
In Greek mythology, Lyssa (or Lytta) was the goddess and embodiment of rage – she brought a frenzy to the hounds of the hunter Actaeon, causing them to kill him.
In the Iliad, Homer uses the term lyssa (meaning frenzy, rage, madness) to describe the state of battle excitement that Hector fell into, comparing him to a rabid dog while simultaneously dismissing his divine origins.
The Greek philosopher Democritus, who lived at the turn of the 5th and 4th centuries BCE, compiled one of the oldest known detailed and insightful observations of a rabid animal (including a dog); he mentions characteristic symptoms such as aggression and hydrophobia (hydrophobia), and also notes that infection in humans occurs through a bite and contact of the infected animal’s saliva with blood.
Romans called rabies rabies, which, like the Greek word for madness, means madness. They were also aware that it was transmitted through bites – they assumed that the sick animal became venomous, and that this venom (virus) was the cause of the infection.
Since humanity had to wait until the 1880s, when the Frenchman Louis Pasteur developed one, the discovery of an effective vaccine meant a death sentence in ancient times. This doesn’t mean, however, that physicians of the time didn’t attempt to treat it. Living in the 1st century CE, The scholar Pliny the Elder recommended placing ashes from the burned fur of the dog that bit the person in the wound. Another treatment method was cauterization, or burning the wound. Of course, none of these treatments could produce the desired results.
The ancients associated rabies primarily with dogs, as they lived close to humans, were the most common source of infection, and their symptoms were the best known (in other mammalian species, the disease may progress slightly differently). However, it’s worth remembering that other animals could (and still can) spread it as well.
“Barbarian” peoples attributed rabies to the work of supernatural forces (some researchers suspect that rabies sufferers, due to their “savage” behavior and fear of water, are behind the legends of werewolf and vampire curses).
