Rabid A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus ownload

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus by Bill Wasik (Author), Monica Murphy (Author). A maddened creature, frothing at the mouth, lunges at a harmless sufferer-and, with a bite, transforms its prey into one another raving monster. It’s a scenario that underlies our darkest tales of supernatural horror, but its energy derives from a really actual virus, a lethal scourge recognized to mankind from our earliest days. On this fascinating exploration, journalist Invoice Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy chart 4 thousand years within the history, science, and cultural mythology of rabies.

The most fatal virus identified to science, rabies kills practically one hundred PC of its victims as soon as the infection takes root in the brain. An illness that spreads avidly from animals to humans, rabies has served all through the historical past as a symbol of savage madness, of inhuman possession. And right this moment, its historical past can assist shed light on the wave of emerging illnesses, from AIDS to SARS to avian flu, that we now know to originate in animal populations.

From the Greek myths to zombie flicks, from the laboratory heroics of Louis Pasteur to the up to date search for a lifesaving therapy, Rabid is a recent, fascinating, and sometimes wildly entertaining take a look at one in every of mankind’s oldest and most fearsome foes.

From the turn of the nineteenth century until after the Civil Struggle, our country endured a legion of horrifying illnesses. Cholera, Smallpox, Yellow Fever, Pneumonia, Syphillis, and Rabies. Cholera and Pneumonia killed the quickest, Rabies the slowest, however a demise by rabies was assured once it reached a certain stage--and a more nightmarish end is hard to imagine. We've forgotten horrors like the hospital in New Orleans that needed to be burned to the bottom as a result of everybody inside, sufferers, nurses and docs have all been dead. Rabbi's didn't kill on such a grand scale, but being bitten by a rabid animal was a protracted, lingering, nightmare.

Invoice Wasik must be careful that the terrifying and the ugly nature of his topic doesn't put off potential readers, and has performed an admirable job. The story of how Louis Pasteur got here up with the cure, almost fifty years before the germ theory of disease turned accepted is a few very high quality work.

This is a crucial book.

Rabid is a very attention-grabbing read. It trots briskly through centuries and across continents, dropping quick stories and more detailed vignettes of rabies cases and cures through the ages. The concern of man reverting to beast through an infectious madness is universal, and it is superb to examine how, to at the present time, rabies continues to be a major killer and supply of worry worldwide. 

Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus 

Bill Wasik (Author), Monica Murphy (Author)

240 pages

Viking Adult; 1 edition (July 19, 2012)

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