Fun facts about rabies! Summertime reading! Updated with balanced nuance from E.J. Dionne and David Brooks on gun control!

It is actually very rare in cats, but in the United States due to many dogs being vaccinated,
cats are more likely to have it...

  You can buy the book here.  Here is the way an untreated rabies infection goes down:     


BW: After that things get grisly. The first symptom is actually sort of interesting: Supposedly you get this tingling sensation at the site of the wound. Like, you didn't have it before, all that time that rabies was crawling up to the brain. Usually the wound has even healed at this point. But once your brain is infected, you'll often start to feel something odd at the site: a tingling, an itch, a stabbing pain. It sounds almost supernatural, but apparently it's true.

MM: Soon, it manifests as a flu-like illness—a sort of general malaise. It gets worse from there. You start to become disoriented and deranged.

BW: Another classic symptom is a difficulty in swallowing, which winds up manifesting as a visceral revulsion to water or other drinks—hence the term "hydrophobia," which used to be the medical term for human rabies. Occasionally, patients also experience hypersexual behavior, with involuntary orgasms. (I read about one case report in Latin that said, "Semen at animam simul efflavit," i.e., "His seed and his life were lost simultaneously.")

MM: Over a short period of time, you swing back and forth between periods of hysterical aggression, on the one hand, and terrible lucidity on the other. So you're able to contemplate just how bad your situation is.

BW: And then it kills you.

 

Hmmm,  given some of his unprovoked attacks on Sarah Palin, it sounds like Andrew Sullivan may have a long drawn-out case of rabies.  Has anyone checked those beagles?  

Ann Althouse then makes a connection between E.J. Dionne and David Brooks discussing the Aurora Colorado shooting and how reaching for legislative fixes by Dionne is not much different than ancients trying to treat rabies with dog hair or shrew tails.  Revealing how both Dionne and Brooks feel compelled to slam the NRA.  Thanks NPR for the "balance."  Which raises the question:  Do liberals and RINOs have a latent form of rabies than manifests itself occasionally in acute outbreaks like shingles or herpes?  

And talking about rabies, we can't forget this classic from the emotionally manipulative mind of Walt Disney:  

h/t:  Althouse