Rabid

by Monica Murphy

  165 The first human deaths attributed to rabies: Holman E. Williams, “Bat Transmitted Paralytic Rabies in Trinidad,” Canadian Veterinary Journal 1, no. 1 (1960): 20–24.

  165 Since dog rabies had been eliminated: Carneiro, “Transmission of Rabies by Bats in Latin America.”

  165 In the three decades that followed, eighty-nine humans: Williams, “Bat Transmitted Paralytic Rabies in Trinidad.”

  165 In 1951, a Mexican man, prior to succumbing: Málaga-Alba, “Vampire Bat as a Carrier of Rabies.”

  166 By the end of 1965, infected bats: George M. Baer and Devil Bill Adams, “Rabies in Insectivorous Bats in the United States, 1953–65,” Public Health Reports 85, no. 7 (1970): 637–46.

  166 today, only Hawaii’s bats are rabies-free: Catherine Brown et al., “Compendium of Animal Rabies Prevention and Control,” Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association 239, no. 5 (2011): 609–18.

  166 Bat bites are now the cause: Web site of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

  166 anyone who awakens with a bat: Ibid.

  166 a letter to the Lancet in 1983: Jane Teas, “Could AIDS Agent Be a New Variant of African Swine Fever Virus?” (letter), Lancet 321, no. 8330 (1983): 923.

  167 In late 1984, a research team at Harvard: Mirko Grmek, History of AIDS: Emergence and Origin of a Modern Pandemic (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990), 80–81.

  167 A short June 1987 letter to the Lancet: F. Noireau, “HIV Transmission from Monkey to Man” (letter), Lancet 329, no. 8548 (1987), 1498–99.

  167 The following month Abraham Karpas: Abraham Karpas, “Origin of the AIDS Virus Explained?” New Scientist, July 16, 1987.

  168 One AIDS researcher interviewed teens: Diane Goldstein, Once Upon a Virus: AIDS Legends and Vernacular Risk Perception (Logan: Utah State University Press, 2004), 85.

  168 “The first one I heard was about a sailor”: Ibid., 86.

  168 in Scotland, a focus group convened: Jenny Kitzinger and David Miller, “‘African AIDS’: The Media and Audience Beliefs,” in AIDS: Rights, Risk, and Reason, ed. Peter Aggleton, Peter Davies, and Graham Hart (London: Falmer Press, 1992), 40–41.

  169 In 1990, an AIDS reearcher in Punta Gorda: Stephanie Kane, AIDS Alibis: Sex, Drugs, and Crime in the Americas (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1998), 55.

  169 In their version, which has circulated: Heike Behrend, “The Rise of Occult Powers, AIDS, and the Roman Catholic Church in Western Uganda,” in AIDS and Religious Practice in Africa, ed. Felicitas Becker and P. Wenzel Geissler (Boston: Brill, 2009), 36n9.

  169 traced this myth back to a 1991 story: Sunday Mail (Harare), Sept. 29, 1991, quoted in Alexander Rödlach, Witches, Westerners, and HIV: AIDS and Cultures of Blame in Africa (Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press, 2006), 160–61.

  170 In some African countries, the white man: Behrend, “Rise of Occult Powers,” 36n9.

  171 Just before the tunnel opened, one poll: Julian Barnes, Letters from London (New York: Vintage, 1995), 288.

  171 in an earlier survey, carried out: New York Times, Dec. 26, 1985.

  171 “The Channel Tunnel is a violation”: Eve Darian-Smith, Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 149.

  171 “the blessing of insularity,” one member: Ibid., 147.

  172 “The commercial began sedately”: S. J. Taylor, Shock! Horror! The Tabloids in Action (London: Corgi, 1992), 34–35.

  174 security fences with animal-proof mesh: Darian-Smith, Bridging Divides, 146–48.

  174 its PR handlers revealed to the media: New York Times, Feb. 17, 1994.

  174 “as if lining up behind Mitterrand”: Barnes, Letters from London, 287–88.

  175 most recent rabid animal to be unwittingly imported: BBC News, April 26, 2008.

  175 more than ninety Americans contracted in 2003: Donald G. McNeil Jr., “Monkeypox Cases Surge in Rural Areas as Price of the Victory over Smallpox,” New York Times, Aug. 30, 2010.

  175 a survey of 122 human cases in Bangladesh: Stephen Luby et al., “Recurrent Zoonotic Transmission of Nipah Virus into Humans, Bangladesh, 2001–2007,” Emerging Infectious Diseases 15, no. 8 (2009).

  176 In Afghanistan, the nation’s lone pig: Reuters, April 30, 2009.

  176 Tunisia went sofar as to ban: News24, Oct. 6, 2009.

  176 among newspaper cartoonists in Muslim countries: Anti-Defamation League, “Arab Cartoonists Use Swine Flu Theme to Mock Israeli Leaders,” Jewish State, May 22, 2009.

  176 an Egyptian cleric, Sheikh Ali Osman: “Fatwa in Egypt: Source of Pigs Is Jews,” Al Bawaba, May 11, 2009.

  177 Video footage shows workers: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYB4sDKh3FI.

  177 Other amateur footage showed pigs brained: Michael Slackman, “Cleaning Cairo, but Taking a Livelihood,” New York Times, May 25, 2009.

  Chapter 7: The Survivors

  182 As she sat beside her mother: Jeanna Giese’s personal Web site, http://site.jeannagiese.com/My_Story.html.

  182 Later, Giese showed the tiny wound: “The Girl Who Survived Rabies,” Extraordinary People, Discovery Channel (2006).

  187 it had been shown in a 1992 study: Brian Paul Lockhart, Noel Tordo, and Henri Tsiang, “Inhibition of Rabies Virus Transcription in Rat Cortical Neurons with the Dissociative Anesthetic Ketamine,” Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy 36, no. 2 (1992): 1750–55.

  188 At 10:00 p.m. on the evening of October 10, 1970: Michael A. Hattwick et al., “Recovery from Rabies: A Case Report,” Annals of Internal Medicine 76, no. 6 (1972): 931–42.

  188 Over the next few days, Winkler’s condition: Ibid.

  189 Although no virus was isolated: Ibid.

  189 After days spent motionless in a coma: Ibid.

  189 Winkler’s clinicians—led by Dr. Michael A. Hattwick: Ibid.

  190 On August 8, 1972, a forty-five-year-old Argentinian woman: Casimiro Porras et al., “Recovery from Rabies in Man,” Annals of Internal Medicine 85, no. 1 (1976): 44–48.

  190 One was a New York laboratory worker: Centers for Disease Control, “Rabies in a Laboratory Worker,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 26 (1977): 183–84.

  190 The second, a nine-year-old boy in Mexico: Lucia Alvarez et al., “Partial Recovery from Rabies in a Nine-Year-Old Boy,” Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 13, no. 12 (1994): 1154–55.

  190 a six-year-old girl bitten by a street dog: S. N. Madhusudana et al., “Partial Recovery from Rabies in a Six-Year-Old Girl,” International Journal of Infectious Diseases 6, no. 1 (2002): 85–86.

  192 In a video made by her doctors: Online resource accompanying Rodney E. Willoughby et al., “Survival After Treatment of Rabies with Induction of Coma,” New England Journal of Medicine 352, no. 24 (2005): 2508–14.

  192 But by the time a second video was made: Online resource accompanying William T. Hu et al., “Long-Term Follow-up After Treatment of Rabies by Induction of Coma,” New England Journal of Medicine 357, no. 9 (2007): 945–46.

  193 In the spring of 2011, Giese graduated: Mark Johnson, “Rabies Survivor Jeanna Giese Graduates from College,” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, May 8, 2011.

  193 On her YouTube channel, she has posted: Jeanna Giese’s YouTube channel, http://www.youtube.com/user/JeannaGieseRabies01#p/u.

  193 spelled out various unique features of Giese’s case: Willoughby et al., “Survival After Treatment of Rabies with Induction of Coma.”

  194 On a Web site hosted by the Medical College of Wisconsin: Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin rabies registry home page, http://www.chw.org/display/PPF/DocID/33223/router.asp.

  194 In 2011, Precious Reynolds: Stephen Magagnini, “Scrappy 8-Year-Old from Humboldt Beats All Odds in Her Battle Against Rabies,” Sacramento Bee, June 13, 2011, 1B.

  195 Reynolds remained in a coma: Erin Allday, “Rabies: Humboldt Girl Beats Virus Against Odds,” San Francisco Chronicle, June 12, 2011, A1.

  195 Reyno
lds left UC Davis Children’s Hospital: http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2011/06/22/girl-heads-home-after-surviving-rabies/.

  195 six out of thirty-five cases: Ferris Jabr, “Rabies May Not Be the Invincible Killer We Thought,” New Scientist, June 21, 2011.

  196 a thirty-three-year-old man treated at the King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital: Thiravat Hemachudha et al., “Rabies,” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports 6, no. 6 (2006): 460–68.

  196 Thiravat Hemachudha, was a vocal skeptic: “The Girl Who Survived Rabies.”

  196 in a subsequent paper, he and his colleagues: Henry Wilde, Thiravat Hemachudha, and Alan C. Jackson, “Viewpoint: Management of Human Rabies,” Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 102, no. 10 (2008): 979–82.

  196 Jackson penned a dissenting editorial: Alan C. Jackson, “Recovery from Rabies,” New England Journal of Medicine 352, no. 24 (2005): 2549–50.

  196 he remains unconvinced, and for an intriguing reason: Alan C. Jackson, “Why Does the Prognosis Remain So Poor in Human Rabies?” Expert Review of Anti-infective Therapy 8, no. 6 (2010): 623–25.

  197 Pasteur himself recorded the case of a dog: Hattwick et al., “Recovery from Rabies,” quoting Louis Pasteur, Charles Chamberland, and Emile Roux, “Nouveaux faits pour servir à la connaissance de la rage,” Comptes Rendus de l’Académie des Sciences, Série III, Sciences de la Vie 95 (1882): 1187–92.

  197 recovery from rabies has been documented: Theodore C. Doege and Robert L. Northrop, “Evidence for Inapparent Rabies Infection,” Lancet, Oct. 5, 1974, 826–29.

  197 One early nineteenth-century physician claimed in the Lancet: “Preventive and Curative Treatment of Rabies,” Lancet, September 29, 1838, 55–58.

  197 reported recovery from rabies after they transfused serum: “Rabies,” Medical Annals of the District of Columbia 33, April 1964: 158–59.

  197 nine cases of reported recovery: Hattwick et al., “Recovery from Rabies.”

  197 A survey for serum rabies antibodies: Ibid.

  197 a case report that detailed an apparently unvaccinated survivor: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Presumptive Abortive Human Rabies—Texas, 2009,” Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 59, no. 7 (2010): 185–90.

  198 At home, the girl’s headaches resumed: Ibid.

  198 Despite an extensive workup: Ibid.

  198 The next day, the CDC ran tests: Ibid.

  199 On March 14, the girl received a dose: Ibid.

  199 “we need to focus more on prevention”: Barbara Juncosa, “Hope for Rabies Victims: Unorthodox Coma Therapy Shows Promise,” Scientific American, Nov. 21, 2008.

  Chapter 8: Island of the Mad Dogs

  203 it was probably Thomas Aquino’s dog: Merritt Clifton, “How Not to Fight a Rabies Epidemic: A History in Bali,” Asian Biomedicine 4, no. 4 (2010): 663–70.

  203 But enforcement of this law: Ibid.

  204 Two months after Thomas’s dog: Ibid.

  205 When his mother took him to the hospital: Luh De Suryani, “Rabies Threat Gets Ever More Real,” Jakarta Post, Jan. 9, 2009.

  205 It took two more deaths: Clifton, “How Not to Fight a Rabies Epidemic.”

  206 in Kazakhstan: International Society for Infectious Diseases, ProMED correspondence, July 19, 2011.

  206 dog bites are still responsible for: The CDC’s Rabies in the U.S. and Around the World page, http://www.cdc.gov/rabies/location/index.html.

  206 In South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal Province: Chris Bateman, “AIDS Fuels Ownerless Feral Dog Populations,” South African Medical Journal 95, no. 2 (2005): 78–79.

  207 But vaccination campaigns in dogs: Partners for Rabies Prevention’s introduction to the Blueprint for Rabies Prevention and Control, http://www.rabiesblueprint.com/spip.php?rubrique5.

  207 the cost of a full course of: WHO Media Centre’s Rabies Fact Sheet, http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/.

  209 the government had removed from targeted regions: Desy Nurhayati, “Mass Culling of Stray Dogs to Continue Amid Protests,” Jakarta Post, Nov. 6, 2009.

  209 one Australian woman described how her own dog: “Bali Dog Cull Shocks Aussies,” Herald Sun, March 1, 2009.

  209 Another Australian, a chef, witnessed: Ibid.

  210 Krishna pointed out that it was in 1860: http://bluecrossofindia.org/abc.html.

  210 But imported vaccines, which have been proven protective: Luh De Suryani, “Vaccines Help Dogs Fight Rabies in Short-Term,” Jakarta Post, Feb. 12, 2010.

  211 281 dogs had been destroyed: “Hundreds of Dogs Put Down, Vaccinated Against Rabies in Bali,” Jakarta Post, Dec. 18, 2008.

  211 its efforts to contain rabies on Bukit: Luh De Suryani, “Denpasar Goes on Alert as More Rabid Dogs Found,” Jakarta Post, Jan. 9, 2009.

  211 scores of high-ranking local government officials: Luh De Suryani, “Rabies Death Toll Rises to Six,” Jakarta Post, Jan. 19, 2009.

  211 despite the extermination of 26,705: Desy Nurhayati, “Mass Culling of Stray Dogs to Continue Amid Protests,” Jakarta Post, Nov. 6, 2009.

  211 Thomas Aquino’s friend Freddy: Luh De Suryani, “Rabies Death Toll Rises to Six.”

  211 his three-year-old neighbor Ketut Tangkas: Luh De Suryani, “Toddler Dies from Suspected Rabies,” Jakarta Post, Jan. 6, 2009.

  213 immune dogs, or “warrior dogs”: Trisha Sertori, “Janice Girardi: Trusting in Warrior Dogs,” Jakarta Post, March 29, 2010.

  217 Niels Pedersen, even gives some credence: Bali: Island of the Dogs (2006).

  217 In addition to supplying owners with protection: A. Agung Gde Putra, K. Gunata Dan, and Gde Asrama, “Dog Demography in Badung District the Province of Bali and Their Significance to Rabies Control” (paper presented at Konferensi Ilmiah Veteriner Nasional XI, Semarang, Central Java, Oct. 11–13, 2010).

  221 Bali’s staggering canine turnover rate: Ibid.

  221 abandoning the goal of eradicating rabies: Luh De Suryani, “Administration Pushes Back Rabies-Free Deadline to 2015,” Jakarta Post, May 26, 2011.

  222 “But Walt could see the drama”: Didier Ghez, ed., Walt’s People—Volume 10 (New York: Xlibris, 2010), 146.

  223 “there was no out but to kill the dog”: Ibid., 145.

  223 called the ending “child abuse”: C. Jerry Kutner, “Good Dog, Bad Dog: The Horror of Old Yeller,” Bright Lights Film Journal, April 2001, http://www.brightlightsfilm.com/32/oldyeller.php.

  223 “still doesn’t forgive us”: Didier Ghez, Walt’s People, 145.

  Conclusion: The Devil, Leashed

  225 In July 2009, though, a suspiciously erratic animal was spotted: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/zoo/09vet07.pdf.

  226 raccoons thrive more today in urban: Samuel I. Zeveloff, Raccoons: A Natural History (Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2002), 75.

  226 the raccoon eats everything: Paul Rezendes, Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign (New York: HarperCollins, 1999), 162–63.

  226 “one of the most intensive wildlife rabies outbreaks”: Eugene Linden and Hannah Bloch, “Beware of Rabies,” Time, Aug. 23, 1993.

  226 Before the mid-1970s, raccoon rabies: Meghan E. Jones et al., “Environmental and Human Demographic Features Associated with Epizootic Raccoon Rabies in Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Virginia,” Journal of Wildlife Diseases 39, no. 4 (2003): 869–74.

  226 more than thirty-five hundred raccoons: Suzanne R. Jenkins and William G. Winkler, “Descriptive Epidemiology from an Epizootic of Raccoon Rabies in the Middle Atlantic States, 1982–1983,” American Journal of Epidemiology 126, no. 3 (1987): 429–37.

  226 The mid-Atlantic saw its first case: Victor F. Nettles et al., “Rabies in Translocated Raccoons,” American Journal of Public Health 69, no. 6 (1979): 601–2.

  227 Within three decades, rabid raccoons: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Update: Raccoon Rabies Epizootic—United States and Canada, 1999,”
Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report 49, no. 2 (2000): 31–35.

  227 updates to its online rabies map: New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Web site, http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/downloads/pdf/cd/animal_rabies_2010_mn.pdf.

  227 rabid raccoons were staggering out: Ibid., http://www.nyc.gov/html/doh/html/cd/cdrab-borough.shtml.

  234–35 Back in 1982, a Yale researcher named Thomas Lentz: Thomas Lentz et al., “Is the Acetylcholine Receptor a Rabies Virus Receptor?” Science 215, no. 4529 (1982): 182–84.

  235 in a subsequent paper eight years later: Thomas Lentz, “Rabies Virus Binding to an Acetylcholine Receptor α-subunit Peptide,” Journal of Molecular Recognition 3, no. 2 (1990): 82–88.

  235 after treatment with the molecule, 80 percent: Priti Kumar et al., “Transvascular Delivery of Small Interfering RNA to the Central Nervous System,” Nature 448 (2007): 39–43.

  235 in March 2011, a team at Oxford: BBC News, March 20, 2011.

  236 “Cerberus stood agape”: From Virgil’s Georgics. See John Jackson trans., Virgil (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921), 101.

  INDEX

  Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.

  Abydos, tomb at, 26

  Achilles (myth), 15–17, 28

  aconite, 30

  Actaeon (myth), 29–30, 40, 107

  African swine flu, 167

  Agnolo di Tura, 48

  Agung Gde Putra, Anak, 207–8, 211, 217

  AIDS, 4, 154, 166–70

  Alfonso XI, king of Castile, 46

  Alfonso of Córdoba, 50

  al-Rāzī (Rhazes), 57

  Anderson, Bill, 222–23

  Andrewes, Christopher, 153–54

  Annals of Sporting and Fancy Gazette, 100

  anthrax, 51, 116–17, 126–28

  antivaccine movement, 124, 126

  antivivisectionists, 133

  Anubis (dog god), 26

  Aquino, Thomas, 203, 204, 205, 211

  Aristotle, History of Animals, 22, 23

  avian flu, 154–55

  Ayurveda, 20, 21

  Bachelet, F. J., 109, 110

  Bacille Calmette Guerin vaccine against TB, 147