Understanding the Nature of Rabies: An Historical Perspective

Abstract

Throughout recorded history there have been major epidemics and epizootics which have decimated populations and influenced the course of events. Man has been particularly affected by bubonic plague and smallpox and, less easily traced until modern times, influenza. Among man’s domestic animals the plagues of cattle, whether rinderpest or bovine pleuropneumonia, at their worst caused starvation and hence lowered resistance in human populations; they frequently preceded severe epidemics, most notably the Black Death.