This always puzzled me. Why don’t humans act much more aggressive or crazed like its often depicted with animals. Afaik there’s 2 types of rabies, “dumb” and “furious” so my question is more towards the 2nd type. For example, we never hear of rabies causing a human to accidentally bite another human so why is that?
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Humans have a highly developed prefrontal cortex that allows them to suppress their own impulses through conscious will.
Humans don’t attack people when rabid because they know it’s wrong to do.
From what I’ve heard, humans just aren’t terribly bitey. Seeing videos of kids with rabies is terribly sad, but does give some insight into it. More fear than anything else.
It’s a terrible disease and a terrible way to die. If you get bitten or scratched by an animal, or even if you wake up to a bat in your house, you should immediately get the rabies vaccine, as even a microscratch from a bat can give you rabies. As far as diseases go, I’d say it’s probably up there with ebola in terms of suffering. At least ebola kills you quickly even as your insides melt.
So is there another animal that doesn’t bite when infected with rabies?
Bats actually. They seem to be carriers of the disease but don’t seem to be affected by it themselves, but they might still scratch you or bite you through normal behavior.
Although fortunately not a lot because they’re not particularly aggressive. Mostly they just ignore humans as they tend to be out of reach and we’re far too slow to be able to really do anything to them.
Fair. To rephrase, is there another animal that’s not made bitey by being ill with rabies.
Humans?
Har har.
I don’t know the specifics, but the relationship between bats and viruses are different than other mammals.
Their bodies and immune systems are really strange. They can get loaded up with tons of diseases but can still manage to outstrip the disease due to their metabolism and immune system. They act as pools of disease. But also are excellent pollinators and eat mosquitoes and other bugs that must be kept in check.
The worst things we can do are build new housing developments in freshly clear cut forests. Diseases that have always been in the bat population suddenly go from 50 miles in the remote woods to someone’s backyard table. A bat has taken a fruit-laced dump on it. Your big dog eats it, and then licks your SO’s hands 20 minutes later. She rubs her eye with the feces-laden saliva, and suddenly, a novel pathogen erupts.
I remember being in college (pre-covid) a biotechnology professor telling us about how zoonotic spillover events happen. He was studying ebola and how it would occasionally kill everyone (or many) in a remote village who came into contact with bats or other creatures often. It made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, as he basically said it was a matter of time till something like it happened again, but way, way worse. Fast forward a number of years and 1,000,000+ dead Americans later, and we now know that we got off extremely easy.
Now I’m wondering if there are documented cases of other primates being infected by rabies…
Uneducated Opinion: Because our higher brain functions can surpress fight/flight better than most animals. It’s the same reason jumpscare movies generally don’t turn theaters into a real-life bloodbath.
By the time rabies has gotten far enough to override that, the nervous system is basically gone and we’re dead.
It seems like a simple explanation, but the history of biology is pretty much the history of thinking we we’re special and then finding out we were wrong, over and over again.
Ah the “insects don’t feel pain” era. Nowadays we know that bugs can recognize human faces. Nobody knows why, they just can.
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preparedness_101%3A_Zombie_Apocalypse
And:
… the generation of a “Zombie virus” cannot be firmly excluded according to the currently available biological evidence … In keeping with this conjecture, an interesting simulation of an imaginary Zombie outbreak reveals that most of the US population would turn into Zombies within one week from appearance of the first case … the transformation of Rabies virus into a “Zombie virus” will always remain a tangible threat surrounding human future
Humans don’t rely on instincts nearly as much as the typical animals you’d see infected with rabies. It’s pretty rare to hear of someone being injured by a human bite because we’re not made for that, other animals use teeth as a primary weapon.
The rabies virus wasn’t meant to transfer via humans, are just unfortunately affected by it because of similarities in biology
My sister used to regularly bite me when she was angry. In her teens. No she’s not mentally disabled. 🤷
Make sure she’s vaccinated!
If anyone wants to know what the virus does to the brain, the Institute of Human Anatomy on yt has a good video on it. It takes a lot of information from Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus which was an interesting read (or listen, if you’re into that!)