Rabid

a cultural history of the world's most diabolical virus

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Bill Wasik: Rabid (2012, Viking)

English language

Published Aug. 7, 2012 by Viking.

ISBN:
978-0-670-02373-8
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4 stars (15 reviews)

3 editions

Review of 'Rabid' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars






Happy World Rabies Day! Me: Freckles, give me your best rabies face! Freckles: My mom is soooooo embarrassing. #rabies #book #bookstagram #currentlyreading #dog

A photo posted by @dvmheather on Sep 28, 2015 at 5:44am PDT


I've had this book forever and finally read it after a staff member starting insisting that she had rabies. A stray cat bit her and died a few days later. (In my mind there is an equal chance that the staff member was poisonous to the cat.) The cat was tested and was rabies-free so all was well for the humans involved. It didn't change things for the cat.The first few chapters caused mass giggling in my office.First up this is description of how Louis Pasteur collected saliva to use in developing his vaccines.






".. watching Pasteur perform this trick with a glass tube held in his mouth, as two confederates with gloved hands pinned …

Review of 'Rabid' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

This is the second book focussing on viruses (and more specific on zoonotic diseases) I've read this year, the first being Richard Preston's excellent The Hot Zone.

While Preston focuses his story on the scientific side of Ebola and a specific (possible) outbreak of the virus in the US the approach of Rabid is much broader. But that may not be too surprising, given that Ebola itself is the new kid on the zoonotic block. Especially compared to Rabies, one of the oldest known zoonotic pathogens with over 5000 years of written history about it.
Rabid starts of with the first still known cases of Rabies-descriptions in literature and how people in ancient times tried to battle the fatal infection (which is so much fun to read, preparare to learn about proto-waterboarding and the rooster's anus!). It goes on to how Rabies transformed our culture and was at least …

Review of 'Rabid' on 'Goodreads'

5 stars

Weird. I listened to the audiobook of this a few year's ago but for some reason never marked it as read. Don't remember exactly when I listened to it though. Fantastic book. Rabies sounds like an absolutely terrifying thing to die of. This tracks its horrifying history and the bizarre path to the treatment to avoid getting it. Crazy story well told.

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Subjects

  • Epidemiology
  • Treatment
  • Rabies
  • History