THE RABIES VIRUS In POPULAR Media

"Rabies Virus" by NIAID is licensed under CC A 2.0.

OH, YEAH, I KNOW ALL ABOUT RABIES IN POPULAR MEDIA. IT WAS IN OLD YELLER (1957), RIGHT?

Old Yeller (1957) is but the tip of the proverbial iceberg, a mere slice of the wonderful pie of rabies-inspired media that is available to our society today. Rabies began influencing media long before 1957, and long before Disney, even. Let's take a cruise back through time and look at what two big tropes were inspired by rabies.

50 SHADES OF GREY WAS INSPIRED BY THE RABIES VIRUS

Bear with me on the title. I promise that we will circle back to this.

Rabies is old. Ancient, even. In the online medical journal StatPearls, authors Ron Koury and Steven Warrington discuss the history of rabies in their article "Rabies." In their piece, Koury and Warrington state that rabies is "one of the oldest known diseases in history with cases dating back to 4,000 years ago." Four thousand years is certainly a long time, but it is also important to note that 4,000 years ago there were no universal medical databases to compare national cases and identify prevalence of identical diseases in regions far away from one another. Because people practicing medicine did not have methods to track what diseases appeared and where, a person in the aggressive stage of rabies in one town and a person in the paralytic stage of rabies in the next may not been both identified as rabies patients. Without a clear cut way to identify rabies other than in its very latest stages, it is fair to assume that cases of rabies could have existed far prior to 4,000 years ago and they were simply not recognized or documented. How far back could rabies possibly go? While it isn't known for certain, we can look at fictional writing and paintings as a hint. With that being said... let's talk vampires.

"book stack" by ginnerobot is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0.

VAMPIRES AND THE RABIES VIRUS - partners in crime

If you haven't casually drawn the parallels between these two already, I'm about to blow your mind. There are two huge similarities between the rabies virus and the trope/genre of vampires: how they are spread and what happens after you are bitten.

First, let's jump into how rabies is spread. The rabies virus has always been spread by a wide variety of wildlife, from foxes to livestock to dogs, but bats were especially common to encounter in your home thousands of years ago due to a lack of air conditioning; people would leave their windows open at night to allow air to move in and out of their homes, and bats would fly into residences in the middle of the night, often when the victims were asleep (Riskin). When you are in bed, with your head down on a pillow and a blanket covering your body, there's often only one place where your skin is exposed: your neck. The bats that bit humans thousands of years ago were not all of the blood-suckling species known as vampire bats, but they were often infected by rabies and consequentially very aggravated, meaning that they would bite whatever they bumped into or sensed as alive due to the rabies virus in their brain (Torres-Perez). This could be painful, it would usually draw blood, and it would cause the bitten human to fall ill and die. And for how vampires spread their ghastly affliction? That's right: bites to the neck, often in the wee hours of the night, just like bats and rabies. While initially pieces involving vampires would depict these fiends as ripping the entire throats out of their victims, more modern pieces portray vampires as blood-sucking fiends that prefer a less messy approach to their meal (Brodman). It's no coincidence that vampires often transform into bats to fly in and out of homes-- the lore of the vampire was very likely inspired by early cases of the rabies virus, which based on the origin date of the vampire suggests that rabies has been around since as early as 900 AD (Brodman).

Second, let's talk what happens post-bite. After being bitten by a sick bat, the human victim would grow extremely ill, then they would become extremely aggressive, and then they would perish (Hoagstrom). After being bitten by a vampire, the human victim would often grow very ill with chills and malaise, and then they would either die of the illness or transform into a vampire themselves. Illness following the bite of a vampire heavily implies that vampirism was also a contagious zoonotic disease with no cure (Brodman).

TRAITS OF THE RABIES VIRUS

commonly spread by vampire bats, which would bite humans wherever skin is exposed, which was generally only the human's neck due to them being tucked into bed during hours of slumber (Riskin)
being bitten by any bat that carried rabies would result in the human contracting rabies and dying (Riskin)

TRAITS OF VAMPIRES

tear out the throat of their victims or drink their blood through their neck (Brodman)
being bitten by one vampire would often turn the bitten victim into a vampire, making them undead (Brodman)

Hopefully, after jumping into the similarities between the rabies virus and vampires, you can see what I was getting at with my earlier claim that Fifty Shades of Grey was inspired by the rabies virus; if the rabies virus inspired vampires, and the lore of vampires inspired the Twilight book series, and Fifty Shades of Grey was originally a fanfiction of the Twilight book series... well, if the human-rabies-immune-globulin-shoe fits, right?

"Rabies Virus Structure" by Manu5 is licensed under CC A-S A 4.0.

WHAT ELSE HAS BEEN INSPIRED BY THE RABIES VIRUS?

Plenty of other media has been inspired by the rabies virus!

The next most notable example is the trope/genre of zombies, a monster that, in late stages of its illness, exhibits a heavily altered mental status; is extremely aggressive; has trouble ambulating normally; and then spreads its affliction by means of a bite (Henkel). The altered mental status and aggression of a zombie can be compared to the aggressive stage of the rabies virus in humans, which causes violence and changes in patient mental status (Koury). Then there's the paralytic stage of rabies, that in humans causes muscle weakness and limb lameness; this change in muscle tone and ambulation is very similar to how zombies move. Finally, both zombies and rabid patients spread their disease by means of a bite that breaks the skin. With this in mind, of course zombies were heavily inspired by a virus such as rabies!

TRAITS OF THE RABIES VIRUS

aggressive stage of rabies virus in humans causes violent behavior; altered mental status that prevents recognition of themselves or people around them (Koury)
paralytic stage of rabies virus in humans causes muscle weakness, limb lameness that affects ability to walk well or move at all (Torres-Perez)
rabies virus is primarily spread through a bite that breaks the skin (Hoagstrom)

TRAITS OF ZOMBIES

violent; altered mental status that prevents zombies from knowing where they are, who they are, or who is around them (Henkel)
cannot walk well; cannot move very well (Henkel)
their affliction is spread by a bite (Henkel)

And this concludes the discussion on how rabies has likely inspired both the tropes of vampires and zombies. There are many movies and novels we are all familiar with that feature either of these monsters, and hopefully when you tuck back into that television series or video game you enjoy, you can appreciate it in a new light: that is, the rabies virus light.

ABOUT RABIES

TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE RABIES VIRUS!

Absolutely! Click that button to the left to check out the page "About the Rabies Virus" and you can learn all about what the rabies virus is, how it affects the body, and what the symptoms that it causes are.

CAN WE CURE RABIES?

Click on the button to the right to visit the "Progress on a Cure" page, where I talk about one of the experimental treatments used to save the life of a few lucky rabies victims.

IS THERE A CURE?

CREDITS/SOURCES

WORKS CITED

Click the button to the left to go to the "Credits/Sources" page to visit the articles, journals, and texts referenced and cited in the writing on this page.

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