page_title: Rabies in animals
section_title: Dogs
hierarchical_section_title: Rabies in animals / Mammals / Dogs
caption_attribution_description: Rabies: Slaying a mad dog Rare Books Keywords: Materia Medica; Rabies; Pedanius Dioscorides
context_page_description: Rabies is a viral zoonotic neuroinvasive disease which causes inflammation in the brain and is usually fatal. Rabies, caused by the rabies virus, primarily infects mammals. In the laboratory it has been found that birds can be infected, as well as cell cultures from birds, reptiles and insects. Animals with rabies suffer deterioration of the brain and tend to behave bizarrely and often aggressively, increasing the chances that they will bite another animal or a person and transmit the disease. Most cases of humans contracting the disease from infected animals are in developing nations. In 2010, an estimated 26,000 people died from rabies, down from 54,000 in 1990.
context_section_description: Rabies has a long history of association with dogs. The first written record of rabies is in the Codex of Eshnunna (ca. 1930 BC), which dictates that the owner of a dog showing symptoms of rabies should take preventive measure against bites. If a person was bitten by a rabid dog and later died, the owner was fined heavily.
  Almost all of the human deaths attributed to rabies are due to rabies transmitted by dogs in countries where dog vaccination programs are not sufficiently developed to stop the spread of the virus.
caption: An image from 1566 depicting a group of men using an assortment of weapons to try and kill a rabid dog who is biting one of the men on the leg.
exif: {}