Artigenda
A misunderstood disease
Picture of Artigenda

Artigenda

A misunderstood disease

For a long time, rabies or rabies was considered a misunderstood disease. A disease with a fatal outcome. Until the disease became treatable with Louis Pasteur’s first breakthrough. On September 28, the world will reflect on rabies on World Rabies Day.
World Rabies Day

What is rabies?

Rabies is a fatal viral disease that affects the brain and central nervous system of both humans and animals. The disease is transmitted mainly through the saliva of infected animals, usually through a bite. Without treatment, the outcome is almost always fatal, and searching for an effective vaccine is essential in medical history.

In the nineteenth century, the first steps were taken towards treating the disease. In the centuries before, rabies was a misunderstood disease. Thousands of years before Louis Pasteur (December 27, 1822 – September 28, 1895) developed the first vaccine, people assumed entirely different causes for rabies.

Werewolves

The myth of werewolves is not entirely based on rabies but is linked to it. Experiences with rabies and hypertrichosis may have further fuelled stories of werewolves over the centuries. A mental illness in which the patient thinks he has been turned into an animal, clinical lycanthropy, may also have contributed to this.
It was probably mainly rabies that mainly fuelled the myth of werewolves. Although it cannot be established with certainty that certain individuals abused it. For instance, it was common for people to frighten others by deliberately behaving like a werewolf.
With rabies, the idea of werewolves had little to do with it. There was no myth, as the superstition was prevalent in several places in Eastern and western Europe. It even got so bad that people were hunted for persons who would look like werewolves. These were persons who suffered from excessive hair on their faces or looked different, for example. In some cases, it was just like with accusations of witchcraft. One did not need much more than a suspicion to bring something about. With sometimes dire consequences. Then it was hardly possible for the person or persons accused to prove otherwise.

In very many cases, the fear also stemmed from something else. That fear went beyond the word included in the word rabies. It goes back to a kind of basic fear of the wolf. This caused persons to be persecuted in the Low Countries too for weaseling. This was considered witchcraft and punished in a similar way. Even in areas where the wolf would later be long extinct, the fear of the wolf was so great that people were afraid of everything. So also the presence of possible werewolves.

Red Riding Hood Syndrome

The idea that an ordinary human can turn into something similar to a wolf is linked to rabies. That this is a serious brain disease is something that is not always realised. This is an example of a Red Riding Hood syndrome.

The Red Riding Hood syndrome refers to the fear of wolves and it stems from the negative representation in fairy tales, for example, of which Little Red Riding Hood is surely one of the best known. In these stories, the wolf is depicted as a cunning, dangerous and bloodthirsty creature. The fear of animals has become part of folk cultures around the world. For almost every culture has stories in which wolves do such things.

In 2022, the Dutch research platform Pointer published a comprehensive analysis of the Red Riding Hood syndrome. This article entitled “Angst voor de wolf: het Roodkapje-syndroom?” (“Fear of the Wolf: the Red Riding Hood Syndrome?”) is in Dutch and is available on the website of Pointer. The automatic translated version is avaliable at this location. Pointer isn’t the only source to turn to. “Stoking Fears of the Big Bad Wolf” is a similar article from Der Spiegel International. These articles, however, aren’t about werewolves, but about real wolves and their position in Germany and the Netherlands.

Of course, it is all quite serious. After all, a wolf is an animal to be taken seriously. The animal cannot be compared to a dog. Although the dog does descend from the wolf. That the name for rabies is related to the dog is somewhat misleading. The disease is not only transmitted by dogs. Cats, foxes and bats can also transmit the disease. This is (possibly) one of the oldest (known) viral diseases. People have suffered from this disease for thousands of years. A scientific breakthrough only followed in the nineteenth century by Louis Pasteur.

Understood disease?

The outcome of Pasteur’s work is well known. Only did that make rabies an understood disease? Remember, Pasteur also did not know at the time that it was a virus. He developed the technique of weakening a virus by exposing infected tissues of animals to dryness and oxygen. To do this, he used rabbits infected with rabies. This weakened form of the virus could then be injected to induce immunity without causing the full symptoms of the disease. This was just still untested on humans. That happened on July 6, 1885, with (possible) success.
Likely, Joseph Meister (21 February 1876 – 24 June 1940) benefited from it. The only question is whether Meister, nine years old at the time, was infected with rabies. The cadaver of the dog that bit him was not preserved. The only indication that rabies infection could be present was the presence of hay, straw and wood in the dog’s stomach, after examination by a vet. The vet concluded that the animal must therefore have rabies. No further investigation was done.
Whether Meister benefited from it or not, it was a beginning. The beginning of the battle that science won. The vaccine was improved in the years that followed. Over the years, several variants of the vaccine were developed and with them, it became safer and more effective. This made rabies even more treatable, provided the vaccine was administered in time.

Today, rabies is an understood disease. This means that science and the medical community know exactly what the disease entails. Developments after Pasteur’s first vaccine allowed millions to be cured of rabies. Does that make the disease an understood disease for everyone? Because the disease still claims many victims in Africa and Asia, you would say not. Only that has little to do with whether or not it is understood. It has mainly to do with the availability of vaccines. These are not available everywhere in the world.

Education and information

Rabies is a misunderstood disease in some parts of the world. There, superstition and possibly religious motives play a role. This can have disastrous consequences for persons affected by rabies. Often resulting in death. Without timely treatment, this is the result. A day like the World Rabies Day is therefore vital for education and information.

Share this post

More
articles

Artigenda
Facebook-f Instagram Mastodon X-twitter

2024 © Artigenda – Artigenda is an intiative by De Goede Huisvader – Chamber of Commerce: 50509616 – Vat: NL002057857B55

Skip to content