Good morning, patient. That’s quite the nasty bite you’ve got on your finger. Looks like a canine tooth… Oh, I see. Yes, that’s fine, I won’t mention your fetishes to the rest of the internet… nobody needs to know what your side pieces have been doing to you. That said, hopefully you weren’t out in the woods when this happened?

Oh.

You were?

Well, unfortunately, I think we’re going to have to play it safe here. Excuse me while I leave to go get two comically oversized needles. One is for your rabies treatment, and the other is for me to take some dilaudid once we’re all done here. Hey, don’t give me that look. It could be much worse, you know.

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HOLISTIC METHODS FOR CURING RABIES: NEW EXCLUSIVE SECRETS JUST FOR YOU!

What are the positives of this treatment?

To most people, rabies is not a fun disease. In the modern era, you’re pumped full of injections to cure the disease, but it’s expensive, time-consuming, and sometimes painful, depending on your tolerance for needles. That said, it definitely works. Rabies was a scourge on society for thousands of years, spread through saliva from infected animals – most commonly from bites – and the symptoms of the disease – dementia, aversion to water & fresh air, aggression, and eventual death – were dramatic and frightening to onlookers. Even four thousand years ago, Mesopotamians connected the threat of dog bites with the risks of rabies and documented that connection on clay tablets that still survive today.

Physicians speculated on the exact nature of how rabies was transmitted to humans for a long time, but it was the Roman doctor Celsus whose hypothesis of infected saliva was eventually proven correct in more modern times. However, his treatment method for rabies was decidedly more controversial – he proposed that patients should be treated by placing raw veal over their open wound for a period of time, followed by a steady diet of rendered hog’s fat and lime. Afterward, the patient would also drink a rather potent concoction of boiled badger dung mixed with wine.

A different Roman treatment was prescribed by Pedianus Dioscorides of the Greek-speaking Roman city of Anazarba, in what is now Turkey; he advocated for cauterizing bite marks quickly after the attack in the hopes of neutralizing the illness. Unfortunately, this is also ineffective due to the nature of infected saliva passing disease into the bloodstream so quickly, but it was remarkably prescient thinking in its time.

What are the negatives of this treatment?

To your average German, I’m not sure there are actually any downsides to any medical treatments involving the consumption of dung. To the rest of the world, it seems like the average patient may take umbrage with this methodology. Perhaps that’s why it fell out of favour after the fall of the Roman Empire. Also, it didn’t work, but let’s not quibble about the small details here.

What are some real-life examples of this treatment? 

In addition to the cures above, many others attempted to come up with treatment methods throughout history. Virtually all of them were unsuccessful, though they did remain exceptionally strange and often disgusting:

• Saint Hubert, the first bishop of the Belgian city of Liege, is said to have cured a man bitten by a rabid dog, through the exact process remains unclear. However, after his death – and upon his canonization, he became the patron saint of those looking for protection against rabies. According to local tradition, Hubert had a golden key gifted to him by none other than Saint Peter himself – and Peter claimed the key had magical protection against evil spirits bestowed unto it by God. Thereafter, priests, physicians, and others in Liege treated rabies by heating a smaller golden key to red-hot temperatures, and pressing it into a patient’s bite to cauterize the wound – and perhaps kill the virus.

• In addition to the golden key gifted to him by Saint Peter, Saint Hubert also allegedly received a stole – a priest’s ornate robe – gifted to him by a group of angels not long after Peter’s holy visit. After his death, the stole was also considered an official relic – and enterprising priests and doctors used to pluck threads from it, make a small incision in a person’s forehead, place the thread in the cut, and then wrap it with a black bandage and leave it there for nine days… all to prevent possible rabies infection.
• From the Middle Ages through to the end of the 19th century, madstones – also known as bezoars – were thought to have healing properties for many ailments, including for rabies. Madstones are formed from indigestible material left behind in animal stomachs, typically containing hardened calcium, hair, and more. According to folklore, one cannot purchase a madstone because the transactional process somehow cancels out the detoxification process that consuming one of these will have on a sick person. Madstones and bezoars are still highly sought after in many parts of the world, though once again, their actual medical effect on treating illnesses such as rabies is entirely negligible.

• The Book of Phisick, an 18th-century European medical textbook, suggested an alternative treatment using ground liverwort (those small plants similar to moss, which also produce spores); the official recipe requires “20 grains of ground liverwort and 20 grains of pepper in half a pint of milk… take this quantity four mornings together, then use of Cold Bath, every other day, for a month.” I’ll leave the peer-reviewing up to others to determine.

How can we improve this treatment for the future?

Louis Pasteur, best known for his sanitizing treatment of milk and other dairy products, also invented the forerunner to modern rabies treatments involving multiple injections delivered through the stomach. I hate to shed my professional conduct here, but honestly, what a grandstanding asshole. Pick a lane, you pompous Frenchman.

In reality, what we need to do is to continue to inoculate both humans and animals against rabies in order to lower the possibility of transmission. Most dogs receive rabies vaccines as puppies, but the number two carrier, bats, seem much harder to catch. I propose we exhume Heath Ledger to attract their attention and then grab a big net and a sack filled with chloroform. This seems like an entirely trouble-free method that will never backfire whatsoever!

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Information for this article taken from here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.