February 9, 2016 • 41 mins
Rabies may have gotten a lot of attention in the U.S. in the 70s and 80s, but it's still an issue in developing countries. Learn all about this nasty virus in today's episode. And stay away from racoons and bats.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building
your website today at squares space dot com and her
offer code stuff at check out and get ten percent
off squares space. Build it beautiful. Welcome to you Stuff
you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
(00:22):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, Jerry and stuff you should know. You're bombing
at the mouth, Jerry, don't let him bite you, all right,
you bet, Jerry. I'm gonna have to put both of
you down like Old Yellow. Let's do it about time.
I knew from day one when we started working together
(00:44):
that this is how it would conclude, me shooting both
of you because of brabies. Switten us down Old Yellow.
Wait wait, speaking of Old Yeller, I'm sorry. Have you
seen the kids in the hall take on Old Yeller?
I don't think so. Yeah. Paul makes the kid shoot
the dog and he's his face is sprayed with blood
(01:08):
from the gunshot wound. So wonderful. Yeah. Worst children's book ever. Oh,
I guess we just spoiled it. Huh. Everyone knows Old
Yeller gets rabies and is shot. Yes, they don't even
bother emailing him. But there is a happy ending. Uh.
You know, Old Yeller has pups and they get a pup,
so instead of like coming back as a ghost dog,
(01:29):
that like helps things turn out well for the family.
It left a legacy in the Dawkinsian view right, still
the worst children's book ever, although it teaches valuable life
lessons about death. Why you gotta do that by killing
Old Yeller? I don't know, but I mean it works
(01:51):
all right. Rabies, I don't know. I thought we'd done
this one. It seems like an obvious one for us. Yeah,
stuff in our wheelhouse for sure. Um. I did not
know this either. It is uh a virus on every
continent in the world except Antarctica. I think there's a
lot of viruses that hold that that title that aren't
(02:12):
on Antarctica in hospitable place. And if a virus is
on every continent, chances are it's a very old one too.
And rabies definitely is extremely old. Um. People have been
writing about rabies for a very long time. The Mesopotamians
who know it's old if you say that word, sure. Um.
They used to have a law where if your dog
(02:34):
was rabid, you faced the stiff penalty, a fine of sorts.
We have those laws today in the United States, I
mean a lot of our laws them from Mesopotamian, the
Code of Hammurabi. You know, like if you watch somebody's
house burned down and don't do anything, that person can
kill you. Still today, just like from the Code of Hammurabi.
So if your neighbor's house is on fire, you have
(02:56):
to put it out. You have to help put it out.
With Mesopotamia. Uh So, the word rabies um in many
languages means um a rage or go crazy. Um. In
Latin it is from a Sanskrit term rob haas to
do violence, and then French uh laarage it's the sexiest
(03:20):
form of rabies h comes from the French now and robert,
meaning to go mad. So if you're not picking up
on it. Um. It's not a friendly virus. No, it's
not the one that you get a dog. Well, actually
we'll talk about that. I'm gonna save it. And for
a long time, I mean, there was nothing we could
do about rabies um. People went to Liege, Belgium to
(03:45):
pray to um st Hubert. Yeah, it's a round name,
isn't it not. Yeah, St. Hubert was the patron saint
of Huntsman. Okay, and not quality footwear. No, and apparently
apparently No, that St. Clark Apparently um St. Hubbins. Actually,
I've not heard of that. It's a spinal tap joke.
(04:06):
You never get my spinal tap joke. No, I need
to see it more than once. Apparently there for the
people out there, that's fine. There's like a hundred dudes. Well,
just I'll sit here and be the straight man. I
don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Derek St. Hubbands
was the patron state of his ancestors, patron state of quality.
Great joke. That is a good joke, man, I'm sorry
stepped all over it. Um so in leaves you would
(04:30):
go and pray to St. Hubert for protection. Probably not
the most effective way to treat rabies. No, I don't
blame people for making a pilgrimage to leash. From what
I understand about rabies based on researching this, it's terrible. Yeah,
it's horrific and fatal. And it wasn't until the late
nineteenth century eighty five when the late Great Louis pasteur Man.
(04:53):
This dude, he what didn't that guy do? To save
the world. Yeah, we should. He's up in our line
and now we have a kind of ongoing line of
like great scientists. Uh, so we will include him on
the list, and we need to start acknowledging the ladies too,
So Madam Curie, we've got our eye on you. That's right,
that's right. Uh and um. Anyway, so Louis past Here
(05:14):
came up with a vaccine for rabies, and he was
he was one of the early germ theory guys. He
was very president person. His his inoculation trials were based
on the idea that if you introduced some like a
low level of rabies to a living being, that living
(05:38):
being would produce anybody's and you could introduce increasingly larger
amounts over time, and eventually the person's antibodies would be
robust enough so that if they ever faced rabies in
the wild, they would be able to fight it off.
And he was absolutely right. And what a crazy thing
to think, though, you know, it is when no one
(05:58):
knows anything about germ theory, to like, like, why don't
we put the disease in the person, Maybe that'll help
cure it. And I think I think that was around
for a while, But I think it was like some
arcane knowledge that not everyone knew about, and past year
really capitalized amazing. Um. But he actually had been working
on something using rabbits as test cases and was basically
(06:21):
he proved it could work in humans by by a
boy who had been attacked by a dog, I think,
and contracted rabies. Um and uh, Louis past your said,
here goes nothing, and it's stuck in with the shot.
And the parents went and here goes nothing. Right, he
goes no nothing, And they said, well, you said this
is gonna work. I said, not a thing. It's good, Louis,
(06:46):
It's technically that. Um. The text you know them Chuck
Jones version of Napoleon when Bug's money st hang out
with him. That's how I learned to do a French accent. Chuck,
the Great Chuck Jones. Uh So, rabies. Let's talk a
little bit about what what it does in your body. Um,
it's really pretty vicious. It It is a viral disease,
(07:08):
like we said at the top, and it attacks the
central nervous system, the brain and the central nervous system. Um.
It is part of the rab dough vera day. Yeah,
family under the genus. You take the genus the Lisa virus.
That was too easy. It was easy, um. And it
has shaped like a bullet and when it comes in
(07:29):
the body, it basically goes as fast as it can
to the spinal cord. Yeah, um, through something called afferent nerves.
With an A they carry impulses towards the central nervous system,
as opposed to efferent with an E they carry impulses away.
But it uses both. So this virus travels along um
the neural pathways through the central nervous system, and it
(07:52):
goes immediately to the central nervous or the spinal cord,
and then up to the brain. Yeah. And then the
brain that's where it replicates vicious. You remember like HIV
replicates inside t helper cells. Well, rabies is a virus
that replicates inside your neurons, your brain cells, which is
not a good place for a virus to start doing.
(08:14):
It's replicating right right, and right after it starts replicating
in the brain, it makes a second stop, a very
important stop, to your salivary glands. And the reason it
does that is because that is the number one mechanism
of transmission for rabies. Yeah, that's when you see the
foaming at the mouth. It's not just a uh symptom
of rabies. But that's the main way that you're going
(08:35):
to get it, is by being bitten by something with
all kinds of nasty rabid saliva and apparently because the
stuff is um wrecking your brain by hijacking your brain
cells and destroying them. There's two different versions of rabies, right,
and cephalatic, which is also known as the furious form
(08:57):
of rabies. That's the one you think of when you
think of a crazy rabid dog that's hallucinating and running
around in circles and chasing its tail and biting at
the air. UM old Yeller basically, although they toned it
down a bit. They did because they didn't want to
scare the kids before they And then there's a paralytic
(09:19):
or dumb form, and that one is um more like
lapsing into a coma basically UM. And I don't know.
Surely there's no way to predict which way that the
things the virus is going to go in a human right,
because it's destroying brain cells. I would think it would
just be totally accidental whether it went towards the encyphialtic
(09:41):
or the um paralytic form. That's a good question, you know,
it would just depend on where it lodges first, right, Yeah,
but both of the forms are in the acute stage. UM.
And here's what's so scary. Once it's in the acute stage,
once it's hit your central nervous system, you're done, exclusively done,
and we'll talk about that. That's that is the for
(10:04):
a very for millennia. The UM this the idea behind rabies.
It's like it was, it's a fatal disease, fatal, except
now they've started to find a few cases here there
that's not in the case, and it's they're starting to wonder, Okay,
is this something we could treat after people are traditionally goners.
(10:25):
Well that's a great tease. So let's uh take a
break and we'll come back right after this with moron rabies. Okay,
(10:52):
So we mentioned the two forms. They're both in the
acute stage, and apparently both stages can happen, uh in
a single case. It's not necessarily one of the other. Right,
it makes sense like if this region of your brain
is wrecked and you're furious and raging, well, eventually it's
going to get to the part of your brain where
you're like you can't move or breathe and you slip
in new coma and die of respiratory distress, you know.
(11:14):
But also got the impression that wasn't necessarily like that's
the path, Like it could start in the dumb stage
as well. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Like, it would
just depend on where the virus, what part of your
brain the virus goes to. It's got to you know. Um.
Something I didn't realize about Raby's chuck was that it's
exclusive to mammals. I knew that it didn't, um, But
I also have wondered over the years, like why isn't
(11:37):
like a rabid squirrel would be your worst nightmare I imagine,
you know, because they'll already come at you. Yeah, you know,
a rabid one would definitely come out you're one of
the One of the traits of or symptoms of rabid
mammal is that a wild one has no fear of humans. Yeah,
they're aggressive. Um. In fact, there's a case I looked up,
(11:58):
as I often do, just in the news, and a
little boy in New Jersey just this week was attacked
by raccoon. This raccoon leapt onto his back while he
was walking down the street during the day. And we
will get to the hallmarks. But that's very important. If
you see a nocturnal animal cruising around during the day
at great speeds, stay away. You're not supposed see racoons
(12:22):
in the neighborhood during the day. Yeah, just go get
your pause bb gun. Well, I don't know about that,
but call animal control and they'll get there. Be begun. Um.
But yeah, this little boy was was this raccoon jumped
on his back and started biting his face and neck.
Where did you learn to pronounce rac raccoon? Now I
say raccoon. That's just one of my jokes. People don't
(12:45):
know though. When I said Alex Baldwin, people literally wrote
in were like, it's Alec, how did you miss thirty Rock?
And Alec Baldwin said, I don't care. Yeah, I don't
know who this chuck is. So anyway, um, you're right. Um,
the little boy I think is gonna be okay, which
is a good news, but it's uh, well, we'll get
(13:07):
to the rarity of it. Plus he was attacked in
New Jersey, which is in the US which means he's
gonna be just fine. Right, But a long way of
saying that um, squirrels and mice and and other smaller
animals typically don't get it, and it makes good sense.
It's because if they are attacked by a rabid animal,
they're they're small and probably won't survive. Like if they
(13:28):
could very well get rabies. Every sign says they can,
but they'll probably pour A little mouse will probably just die, right,
because if a raccoon gets its hands on a mouse
and it bites it, that saliva is gonna be transmitted
to the wound. But you also need the host to
be alive for the virus to replicate in that host
exactly if their neck is broken and they're dead, then
(13:50):
that it's not gonna work. But yeah, absolutely, but you said, yes,
you can get a woodchuck with rabies. Woodchuck's raccoons Apparently
in the United States, reck wounds are the most common
vector for the disease um. Now, yes, uh, but for
the most part, it's larger, slight, slightly larger small mammals.
(14:11):
Does that make sense? Wood chucks, raccoons, medium sized mammals,
medium size On the smallest side, a small to medium
a medium sized mammal. The means like um, I guess
kay uh. And it takes a few months for the
diseased or on its course, an animal. But the scary
thing is it can lie dormant in humans for years,
(14:34):
months or years. That's very scary, super scary. Yeah, because
you guys don't realize this, Like you think it's like
frossing at the mouth or something. No, the rabies virus
is one of the scariest viruses on the planet. It
is um so like I said, saliva is the mode
of transmission for most rabies cases, and you can catch
(14:54):
it very easily. Technically, if you had like an open
wound and you like rubbed your finger where the open
moond was. I guess I should have specified that earlier.
On the saliva of a rabid raccoon, you could easily
catch rabies, right, But that's an uncommon thing to do.
You could also if you um took the brain of
(15:16):
that raccoon and rubbed it on your open wound to
your finger, you could also catch it. Even more uncommon.
But if you came across a raccoon's poop that was
rabid and he took it and just rubbed it all
over your hands. The camouflage, the scent of your hand
probably the most uncommon. You would not catch rabies. That's
what the good news. Yeah, it doesn't transfer in the
(15:38):
feces or the blood or the p Yeah, the urine.
P uh oh man, it's been p fest at my house.
You want a little quick side story. I changed the
litter box before I went to Birmingham, and four days
later we realized that I didn't put litter in the
(15:58):
litter box, eat it, put the lid back on, put
it back in, rushed out of the door to drive
to Birmingham, and four days later we're like, our cats
are sick because they're peeing on everything in the house.
Emily went over and she went, hey, well, I won't
say what she said. It wasn't hey honey, Uh, guess what.
(16:18):
There's a lake of urine in the litter box and
it's all your fault. So we had to throw a
lot of things away in our home that previously we're
working just fine. Man, And uh, I got the Dummy
of the Year award in our house. That's cool. You
should instagram that trophy. Tell me of the year. Yeah,
that's just it's a tattoo now on my on my
(16:40):
lower back of Alfreddy Newman. So anyway, we we've been
in urine lands. It is so gross and cat pea
is not you know, it's it's tough to mask. So
we're really of man, what a dummy. So anyway, just
the moral of the story is litter is a very
(17:01):
important part of the letter box. So and luckily if
your cats are rabid, you wouldn't have caught anything from that. No,
but I'm sure i have what's it called, what's the
cat disease from changing letter? Oh, toxic plasmos has gone.
I'm sure I've had that for years. Um, that's why
you do most of the things you do, that's right.
(17:22):
So uh, it is a very adaptive disease. Um. And
here's another scary thing, although it's it's not that scary
because it's super super rare, but in laboratories it has
been transmitted through the air aerosol transmission, and they have
found one case where it actually happened in the wild.
But it was a cave that had like tens of
(17:44):
millions of infected bats like sneezing and coughing up their junk. Everywhere.
And in that case, uh, someone got raby supposedly thick
the air three into the cave in Texas. But that
that's uh again not something you need worry about. Yeah,
but humans can spread it to and remember you can
spread it through saliva, which means that if you are kissing,
(18:09):
especially kissing with tongue style a rapid person. And remember
it can take months, if not years, for the symptoms
to set on. UM, you could conceivably catch rabies from that.
You can also catch it as an STD to sexual contact.
They believe this is the CDC theorizing. At this point
(18:30):
there's no documented cases um. And then you could also
conceivably catch it from like sharing a cigarette with somebody
or drinking after somebody using the same glass. Again in theory,
any transmission of shared saliva. But here's the scariest one
to me, Um, it has happened before where you get
a transplant of an organ, typically a corneal transplant, and
(18:54):
get rabies that way. Yeah, it's like we accidentally gave
you a corn it with rabies. Yeah. Sorry, And one
of the problems do you think, well, how could that
possibly happen? Apparently rabies is very hard to detect and
the main place is to detect it. Remember, it doesn't
show up in your blood or anything like that. I
(19:15):
know you're in feces is um, in the saliva and
in the uh um brain. Well yeah, and the saliva.
It's not even super accurate and it takes longer. So
for the past forty years in the United States, the
way they test for rabies if an animal has bit
your child as they capture it and they cut its
head off and inspect the brain. Right, that's horrifying, it is.
(19:41):
But unfortunately, like necessary, I guess of a raccoon bite
your kid off with the head. Maybe an animal lover
out there who's developing scientists will come up with a better,
more accurate rabies test that will save the lives of
thou Since millions of wood chucks around the world. But
(20:02):
I wonder how many times they've been like, oh, thankfully,
no rabies. Yeah no, I'm sure, but sorry, your head
has cut off. Yeah, Like imagine being the clinician who
did that. It's kind of bumm you out. Yeah, absolutely,
because it's like this thing's head was cut off because
somebody thought it had rabies. Terrible all right, So, um,
everybody UM knows through popular culture and things like Old
(20:27):
Yellow that the foaming of the mouth of a crazy
looking dog is a pretty good sign to stay clear.
But there are many other ways, especially if they have
the dumb form that you might not know. Uh. And
here are some of the symptoms. Partially we're fully paralyzed
animal loss of appetite, and a lot of these can
be confused for other things. Because my dearly deceased dog
(20:49):
Lucy probably ticked off about nine. She really like strange
behaviors like snapping at the air or turning in circles.
Lucy did that. Uh. Nocturnal animals who wander during the day. Um,
Like I said, if you see a raccoon walking around
during the day, it's not a good sign. Drool excessively.
(21:10):
Lucy drooled. Wild animals who show no fear of humans. Uh.
Signs of pikea like eating things that aren't food. Lucy
did that all the time, UM. Sporadic changes in mood
or behavior Lucy restless or aggressive, no, obviously disoriented Lucy.
And then a change in voice which I thought was strange.
(21:33):
She was like uh. And generally it varies by regions,
so like maybe here in the South, raccoons or maybe
in another place that might be skunks largely, right with
the animals that have it the most. Um. Yeah, but
apparently in the United States it's raccoons for sure, they
(21:54):
have the most. But the mode of transmission in the
United States UM comes through bats more frequently. Yeah, that's
the big days. So if you get like a hundred
bats and a hundred raccoons, more raccoons are going to
have rabies. But you're more likely to catch rabies from
a bat than a raccoon. Yeah. And why is that. Well,
(22:15):
there's a few reasons bats can get into places that
raccoons can't. Um and Uh. Bats also have very tiny teeth. Uh.
And if you're sleeping in a room and you wake
up and there's a bat in it, it's recommended that
you kill that bat and take it in for rabies testing. Um.
(22:36):
So then they can kill it for you. They can
do your dirty work for you. Um. But the reason
why is because a bat's teeth are so fine that
you can have been bitten in the night and it
wouldn't have woken you up. You won't you won't know
that you were bitten, but you may have contracted rabies
in that case. C R excellent episode on bats, yeah,
(22:58):
which which is excita because they bats are wonderful. Remember
Louis came like bat crazy over that one. Yeah, very
bat friendly podcast. Yeah, so don't don't kill it bets.
As a matter of fact, just look the other way
if you see a bat in your room, because something
bad is gonna happen to that bad. If your dog,
we'll take a break after this. But if your dog
(23:18):
is potentially bitten by an animal you think it might
be rabid, they will be isolated for ten days, um,
and if they make it through that ten days, then
you're home free. If they don't. Sadly, that means you
have to go the old yellow route, except these days
it's much more humane. Well I don't know about more humane,
but they don't take it behind the bart and shoot it.
(23:40):
Yeah yeah, I mean I would call that more humane.
But in you know, rural Texas, they might be like, no,
that's quick and easy and painless, just like the shot
with the lethal injection. Yeah, I'm sure that's what they
call in Texas. Okay, all right, let's take a break.
Then I'm gonna get your stuff together, get my stuff
(24:02):
together and we'll come back with more rabies. Chuck. You
(24:24):
ever been to Bali? Nope? Do you haven't neither by Bali, um,
like Hawaii and some other places around the world, is
actually a UM it was a rabies free zone, a
place where like no cases of rabies have been reported. Uh.
They're usually isolated, which makes it hard to get rabies
(24:45):
into and they usually also have some um really top
Nutch governmental restrictions, like if you try to take a
dog in or out of Hawaii, it takes a very
long time and a lot of paperwork. And one of
the reasons why it's because they don't want rabies come
going into their to their states. Taking moment Hawaii. No,
that's why she would be but no, we basically she
(25:06):
would get out of quarantine about the time we were leaving.
So um, but my in laws moved and they took
their dogs with them, and yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah,
but in Bali specifically, they were rabies free until two
thousand and eight, and um, some dogs contracted rabies somehow
and bit some people and some people died and it
(25:27):
was a big deal. There goes our rabies free designation. Yeah,
so they can get it back right. Well, yeah, um,
the government has been eradicating aggressively the rabies that was
found on the island. And I'm not sure if they're
doing this. I know they're doing a lot of euthanizing,
or they did in the affected areas. But in the
(25:48):
United States, UM, some wildlife services they're leaving basically what
amounts to like a high dose of um oral rabies
vaccine as tasty eight out just out in the woods
to try to like control rabies in the raccoon population.
Apparently doesn't harm humans or dogs too debate. And the
(26:09):
reason that they're doing this is because they saw what
a great work, what a great job at eradicating rabies
among dogs in the United States, because it used to
be that rabies in the US was very frequently transmitted
by dogs, and in a lot of the rest of
the world, Um, the dogs are still a major mode
(26:29):
of transmission, right, but in the US of rabies vaccination
push among um pets has really lowered that that in
the in the dog population especially, and push meaning laws. UM.
I don't think it's in every state now, but I
think most states now required by laws pretty sensible. Yeah,
(26:50):
if you have a pet. You should have a non
rabid pet. Yeah, Like he would say no, no, I don't,
I don't want my dog getting that. Rabies would say
that probably. So uh, this is the most recent stat
we have. In two thousand six, UM point zero one,
one of all rabies cases in the United States were
(27:12):
almost said feline were canine eleven thousands. Yeah, so that's
virtually nil and I believe um in two thousand six
that same year, not one case of rabies death came
from an American dog, not one case of human rabi's death. Correct. Yeah.
(27:34):
And then of all us wildlife rabies cases are bats,
which led to in two thousand six UM, two of
the three rabies related deaths were from bat transmissions bat bites. Yes,
could actually let me. I spoke wrong that it wasn't
in two thousand six. It was only since night there
(27:56):
has not been one case of death from an American dog. Man,
So that's great. They really kind of eradicated that here.
But elsewhere in the world. Um again, catching rabies from
being bitten by a dog is still a real problem.
As a matter of fact, the World Health Organization called
rabies among neglected diseases, one of the most most one
(28:20):
of the most neglected among neglected diseases, there's still thirty
thousand to seventy thousand people who die every year. It's
around one every ten minutes from rabies in the developing world. Like,
think about that in the United States, three people died
in two thousand and six. That was a bad year.
Seventy thousand people as much as seventy people around the
(28:43):
world are dying from rabies. And these, uh, the countries
that have these really high rabies mortality rates and humans
are also the ones that usually have, um the least
amount of money you pay for inoculations and also even
further have even less money to inoculate their dogs. So
there's a huge push right now among scientists be like, um,
(29:06):
the rest of the world, you guys need to pay
to eradicate rabies at least in the dog population around
the world. Do something. Uh. And and also when you
have that rural areas, they're not able to get to
the clinics to receive those regular inoculations. Yeah, because so
Pasteur came up with the rabies vaccine and basically his
(29:27):
technique has been only slightly altered over the years. Um,
that's still a series of shots in the United States
or the West. The ones that we have are five
shots over the course of a period of time, and
again it's boosting your immunity slowly. And it's a very
similar thing in the UH in what did the guy
(29:49):
in the in the emails say for the last the
last listener mail, instead of developing the lower income countries
in lower income countries, um, they they they have a
schedule as well. It's not all getting them at once.
They have to boost your immunity and it may not
be something like driving down the street to the minute
clinic to get this stuff done. You may have to
(30:10):
travel quite a ways and again miss some work. So
it's a big problem. Yeah, you mentioned pasteurs. Brilliant idea.
He used the it's called an attenuated UH form of rabies.
It's it's weakened but still alive that he gathered from
spinal cords of animals. These days they kind of do
the same thing, but it is not a live form
(30:30):
of the virus. It is a dead form of the virus.
But like you said, the same idea is that will
give you this slowly and before it reaches your spinal cord. Ideally, UM, ideally,
if you want to live, then you've built up the immunity. Uh,
there are some if you have some extra dough in
(30:51):
your pocket and want to help out some groups. There's
um a couple of groups that are working to eradicate
rabies in low income countries, like Rita Rabies in the
America's and Raby Free Raby's Free World are both working
to eradicate rabies elsewhere. Yeah, and if you have been
bitten by a animal that you were worried about, um,
I would just immediately, you know, if I got bitten
(31:14):
by a squirrel or something, I would go to the
doctor and just get it checked out. Obviously immediately. You
don't walk that one off. But here are some oh
this a little sting. Oh well, let's just see what happens.
Like the man who castrated himself and then sat down
to dinner in the nineteenth century. Remember we talked about him.
He read his Bible and then ate dinner and then
then went to the doctor. Right. Here are some of
(31:38):
the symptoms. And humans humans human beings, not human beings.
I bury it you, rabbit, stomach pains, a change in personality, anxiety.
I'm also biting at the air, uh, stomach pains, anxiety, restlessness, fever.
Do you have any of this? Nope, increased aggression, sore throat,
excessive saliva, hallucinations, delirium. If that's happening you, you are
(32:02):
really like, should go to the doctor. Yeah, coma at
that point you should have someone take you to the doctor.
And then something called hydrophobia, which we should cover. That
used to be a word for rabies, Like you could
say that person has rabies, or you could say that
person has hydrophobia, and it used to mean the same thing.
And what and why, what's the deal with hydrophobia? It's
a it's an intense, unreasonable fear of water that develops
(32:25):
from raby symptoms. Apparently, Yeah, because I think drinking is uh.
You have a very violent, painful spasms and responses to
trying to swallow water, and so you become fearful of water.
That's crazy, which is really really sad because you're drooling
and you're producing tons of saliva, but you also are
just dying of thirsty basically. But if you do drink anything,
(32:49):
the pain from your throat muscles contracting is so bad
that you will just not drink. You would just rather
not drink anything. And and apparently you become fearful of
even the concept of drinking, so you get scared of water.
That's also because your brain is deteriorating at a rapid rate. Man.
But yeah, this is not fun. This is not nice stuff.
(33:11):
And and again. For years and years and years and
years up until like the last few years, I think
that the common conventional wisdom was if you if rabies
got to your central nervous system, bye bye, we might
as well old yellow you because you're not going to
survive and you're going to die one of the worst
(33:31):
deaths we could think of. H And it wasn't until
two thousand uh four. Yeah, Gina, Gina, guys, I thought
you could say, Gina gershawn. No, it's like, oh, that's
what happened to her. Gina. Guys. She was a girl,
a teenager in Wisconsin who was bitten by a bat,
I think, and some doctor said, um, you're a goner,
(33:56):
but I'm not going to give up on you, Gina,
no way, no how uh sleep now, baby, I'm gonna
put you in a coma. And he put her in
a medically induced coma and it was enough so that
her body was able to fight off the Raby's infection.
So she survived the raby's infection without being inoculated previously,
(34:20):
and um apparently without the inoculation being given to her
in a rapid enough time. So she literally survived a
Raby's infection. And now they call that procedure of the
Milwaukee protocol, and it saved five more people's lives. They
call it that. Yeah, And there was a study in
Peru and uh in the Andies, a lot of Peruvian
(34:42):
groups live near baths, they have to deal with bats.
Apparently some Peruvians have developed immunity to rabies and they
documented I think about a dozen Peruvians who survived rabies
without any inoculations. So they're saying, Okay, this isn't a
one percent fatal disease. We can work with that. But
(35:02):
it's like really big Gangbusters news. Is it's almost like
a natural inoculation that's happening though the same idea right there,
getting exposed to it gradually. I don't know. I don't
know if that if these people had been bitten before,
or if some sort of inoculation was passed down to
them through heredity, you know, like I don't know. I'm
not sure. Like Grand Pappy was strong against the rabies, right,
(35:24):
So I am right, that's how the jeans work, all right.
From nineteen fifties to the roughly mid nineteen eighties. Uh,
the horror stories were true. You did get like upwards
of twenty to twenty three shots in the belly and
the abdomen to treat rabies big needles. Right. Yeah, there
was not an old wives tale. It was a very
(35:46):
painful procedure. Um. I tried to find out why it
was done in the belly, and the only thing I
could find it's completely unsubstantiated, but makes sense. Apparently after
you start having these shots, um, somewhere between ten and twenty,
you start having really bad reactions and inflammation, and but
(36:06):
you need to give them in the same area. So
the belly was the largest part of the body that
you could still find a place to give the injection.
So I don't know if this true or not. That
makes sense. Uh, And we have to mention Ozzy Osborne.
But biting the head off the bat, Yeah, it wasn't
a live bat. You know. Well, there's different stories. It
(36:28):
wasn't allow No, no no, he swears it was alive because
he felt the head moving in his mouth. Oh, other
people have said that it wasn't a lot. Of the
fan that threw the bat on stage said it was dead.
Azzis Azzi. He's like, it was a lot. Uh, thank you,
but that is not an old why. He also bit
(36:49):
the head off a pigeon at a party. But um,
he thought the bat was a toy. Apparently did bite
the bat's head and did get those injections as a
preventative measure, but he did not ever contract rabies. Smart um,
and this you know who knows. It's also called a
legend in some circles. So, but I think it really
happened documented. While I was researching this, I was like, wow,
(37:10):
I am not inoculated against rabies. Maybe I should just
go ahead and do that. Would be kind of neat
to be like, go ahead and bite me, raccoon, you're crazy, raccoon,
I'm fine, And then you could continue your ongoing battle
with your squirrels, your sports deck squirrels. Now the squirrels
one I had to take down the bird feeder. You
just gave up. Now. The kind of complex was like,
(37:32):
you're not allowed to have those the attract squirrels. I'm like, yeah,
no doubt they squirrels. I know. So I said there,
it's fine. You anything else, Nope, rabies. If you want
to know more about it, type that word into the
search bar how stuff works dot com. Are A B
y s and it will bring up this awesome article.
(37:54):
I know, I know. I'm just do it correctly that way.
R A B I E S. That's right? All right?
Uh did you say that? Oh? And since I misspelled something,
it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
um cringe worthy experience. Oh god, why did we ask? Hey,
(38:16):
guys have been listening for a couple of years, writing
for the first time to tell you a compelling story
about the time my dad's eyeball fell out of his head.
Perhaps I should say it was forced out of his head.
It takes place before I was born, But the way
he tells it, it will make you hesitant to go
water skiing. See, my dad was a mobbing force serve
in Las Vegas. In particular, you wouldn't want to let
(38:39):
your your body or your face become parallel to the
water surface when you're going around a bend in the river.
So when that happens. You can experience what happened to
my dad. His face skimmed to the water, and the
force of that cast his eyeball to pop right out
of his head. It's stuff that urban legends are made of.
So there my dad is in excruciating pain, treading water
(38:59):
with his eye ball in the palm of his hand.
If you're ever so lucky as to have your eyeball
outside of your head, hope that it's still attached. Like
my dad's eyeball was. Cum as he got river water
in his eye socket, he forced it back into his
eye socket and there was nothing else he could do
at that crucial moment. As I understand that, he never
went to see a doctor, and as I has been
(39:23):
turned at a three to five degree angle. Ever his
name is John Rambo. That is crazy. She said. He
was relieved six months later while the white static he
was seeing slowly started to return and he had normal
vision once again. That's outcome bias. If I've ever seen it, cringe,
if you experienced any squeamish feelings, I consider it his
(39:45):
story well told. Yeah, well well told story about that
is from Lena or Lina in California to California boy.
I don't know. Her dad has made of some tough stuff.
If he did not be good to a doctor, he's
like hero not oh simohia. Yeah it's crazy. So uh
(40:06):
did somebody else wrote in and got me um about
having to get shots like up their nose? That one
got me too, So whoever wrote in with that one
hats off. Well. At least this guy got a great
nickname out of it, Old River Water Sucket, Jimmy the Mouthful. Uh.
If you have a crunch versy story, keep it to yourself,
(40:29):
send us something else in via tweet to s y
s K podcast, or join us on Facebook dot com,
uh slash stuff you should Know? Send us an email
to Stuff podcast. At House supports dot com and has
always joined us at at Home on the web. Stuff
You Show dot com. For more on this and thousands
(40:51):
of other topics, Does it House Stuff works dot com
This episode is brought to you by Squarespace. Start building
your website today at squares space dot com and her
offer code stuff at check out and get ten percent
off squares space. Build it beautiful. Welcome to you Stuff
you should know from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey,
(00:22):
and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W.
Chuck Bryant, Jerry and stuff you should know. You're bombing
at the mouth, Jerry, don't let him bite you, all right,
you bet, Jerry. I'm gonna have to put both of
you down like Old Yellow. Let's do it about time.
I knew from day one when we started working together
(00:44):
that this is how it would conclude, me shooting both
of you because of brabies. Switten us down Old Yellow.
Wait wait, speaking of Old Yeller, I'm sorry. Have you
seen the kids in the hall take on Old Yeller?
I don't think so. Yeah. Paul makes the kid shoot
the dog and he's his face is sprayed with blood
(01:08):
from the gunshot wound. So wonderful. Yeah. Worst children's book ever. Oh,
I guess we just spoiled it. Huh. Everyone knows Old
Yeller gets rabies and is shot. Yes, they don't even
bother emailing him. But there is a happy ending. Uh.
You know, Old Yeller has pups and they get a pup,
so instead of like coming back as a ghost dog,
(01:29):
that like helps things turn out well for the family.
It left a legacy in the Dawkinsian view right, still
the worst children's book ever, although it teaches valuable life
lessons about death. Why you gotta do that by killing
Old Yeller? I don't know, but I mean it works
(01:51):
all right. Rabies, I don't know. I thought we'd done
this one. It seems like an obvious one for us. Yeah,
stuff in our wheelhouse for sure. Um. I did not
know this either. It is uh a virus on every
continent in the world except Antarctica. I think there's a
lot of viruses that hold that that title that aren't
(02:12):
on Antarctica in hospitable place. And if a virus is
on every continent, chances are it's a very old one too.
And rabies definitely is extremely old. Um. People have been
writing about rabies for a very long time. The Mesopotamians
who know it's old if you say that word, sure. Um.
They used to have a law where if your dog
(02:34):
was rabid, you faced the stiff penalty, a fine of sorts.
We have those laws today in the United States, I
mean a lot of our laws them from Mesopotamian, the
Code of Hammurabi. You know, like if you watch somebody's
house burned down and don't do anything, that person can
kill you. Still today, just like from the Code of Hammurabi.
So if your neighbor's house is on fire, you have
(02:56):
to put it out. You have to help put it out.
With Mesopotamia. Uh So, the word rabies um in many
languages means um a rage or go crazy. Um. In
Latin it is from a Sanskrit term rob haas to
do violence, and then French uh laarage it's the sexiest
(03:20):
form of rabies h comes from the French now and robert,
meaning to go mad. So if you're not picking up
on it. Um. It's not a friendly virus. No, it's
not the one that you get a dog. Well, actually
we'll talk about that. I'm gonna save it. And for
a long time, I mean, there was nothing we could
do about rabies um. People went to Liege, Belgium to
(03:45):
pray to um st Hubert. Yeah, it's a round name,
isn't it not. Yeah, St. Hubert was the patron saint
of Huntsman. Okay, and not quality footwear. No, and apparently
apparently No, that St. Clark Apparently um St. Hubbins. Actually,
I've not heard of that. It's a spinal tap joke.
(04:06):
You never get my spinal tap joke. No, I need
to see it more than once. Apparently there for the
people out there, that's fine. There's like a hundred dudes. Well,
just I'll sit here and be the straight man. I
don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah, Derek St. Hubbands
was the patron state of his ancestors, patron state of quality.
Great joke. That is a good joke, man, I'm sorry
stepped all over it. Um so in leaves you would
(04:30):
go and pray to St. Hubert for protection. Probably not
the most effective way to treat rabies. No, I don't
blame people for making a pilgrimage to leash. From what
I understand about rabies based on researching this, it's terrible. Yeah,
it's horrific and fatal. And it wasn't until the late
nineteenth century eighty five when the late Great Louis pasteur Man.
(04:53):
This dude, he what didn't that guy do? To save
the world. Yeah, we should. He's up in our line
and now we have a kind of ongoing line of
like great scientists. Uh, so we will include him on
the list, and we need to start acknowledging the ladies too,
So Madam Curie, we've got our eye on you. That's right,
that's right. Uh and um. Anyway, so Louis past Here
(05:14):
came up with a vaccine for rabies, and he was
he was one of the early germ theory guys. He
was very president person. His his inoculation trials were based
on the idea that if you introduced some like a
low level of rabies to a living being, that living
(05:38):
being would produce anybody's and you could introduce increasingly larger
amounts over time, and eventually the person's antibodies would be
robust enough so that if they ever faced rabies in
the wild, they would be able to fight it off.
And he was absolutely right. And what a crazy thing
to think, though, you know, it is when no one
(05:58):
knows anything about germ theory, to like, like, why don't
we put the disease in the person, Maybe that'll help
cure it. And I think I think that was around
for a while, But I think it was like some
arcane knowledge that not everyone knew about, and past year
really capitalized amazing. Um. But he actually had been working
on something using rabbits as test cases and was basically
(06:21):
he proved it could work in humans by by a
boy who had been attacked by a dog, I think,
and contracted rabies. Um and uh, Louis past your said,
here goes nothing, and it's stuck in with the shot.
And the parents went and here goes nothing. Right, he
goes no nothing, And they said, well, you said this
is gonna work. I said, not a thing. It's good, Louis,
(06:46):
It's technically that. Um. The text you know them Chuck
Jones version of Napoleon when Bug's money st hang out
with him. That's how I learned to do a French accent. Chuck,
the Great Chuck Jones. Uh So, rabies. Let's talk a
little bit about what what it does in your body. Um,
it's really pretty vicious. It It is a viral disease,
(07:08):
like we said at the top, and it attacks the
central nervous system, the brain and the central nervous system. Um.
It is part of the rab dough vera day. Yeah,
family under the genus. You take the genus the Lisa virus.
That was too easy. It was easy, um. And it
has shaped like a bullet and when it comes in
(07:29):
the body, it basically goes as fast as it can
to the spinal cord. Yeah, um, through something called afferent nerves.
With an A they carry impulses towards the central nervous system,
as opposed to efferent with an E they carry impulses away.
But it uses both. So this virus travels along um
the neural pathways through the central nervous system, and it
(07:52):
goes immediately to the central nervous or the spinal cord,
and then up to the brain. Yeah. And then the
brain that's where it replicates vicious. You remember like HIV
replicates inside t helper cells. Well, rabies is a virus
that replicates inside your neurons, your brain cells, which is
not a good place for a virus to start doing.
(08:14):
It's replicating right right, and right after it starts replicating
in the brain, it makes a second stop, a very
important stop, to your salivary glands. And the reason it
does that is because that is the number one mechanism
of transmission for rabies. Yeah, that's when you see the
foaming at the mouth. It's not just a uh symptom
of rabies. But that's the main way that you're going
(08:35):
to get it, is by being bitten by something with
all kinds of nasty rabid saliva and apparently because the
stuff is um wrecking your brain by hijacking your brain
cells and destroying them. There's two different versions of rabies, right,
and cephalatic, which is also known as the furious form
(08:57):
of rabies. That's the one you think of when you
think of a crazy rabid dog that's hallucinating and running
around in circles and chasing its tail and biting at
the air. UM old Yeller basically, although they toned it
down a bit. They did because they didn't want to
scare the kids before they And then there's a paralytic
(09:19):
or dumb form, and that one is um more like
lapsing into a coma basically UM. And I don't know.
Surely there's no way to predict which way that the
things the virus is going to go in a human right,
because it's destroying brain cells. I would think it would
just be totally accidental whether it went towards the encyphialtic
(09:41):
or the um paralytic form. That's a good question, you know,
it would just depend on where it lodges first, right, Yeah,
but both of the forms are in the acute stage. UM.
And here's what's so scary. Once it's in the acute stage,
once it's hit your central nervous system, you're done, exclusively done,
and we'll talk about that. That's that is the for
(10:04):
a very for millennia. The UM this the idea behind rabies.
It's like it was, it's a fatal disease, fatal, except
now they've started to find a few cases here there
that's not in the case, and it's they're starting to wonder, Okay,
is this something we could treat after people are traditionally goners.
(10:25):
Well that's a great tease. So let's uh take a
break and we'll come back right after this with moron rabies. Okay,
(10:52):
So we mentioned the two forms. They're both in the
acute stage, and apparently both stages can happen, uh in
a single case. It's not necessarily one of the other. Right,
it makes sense like if this region of your brain
is wrecked and you're furious and raging, well, eventually it's
going to get to the part of your brain where
you're like you can't move or breathe and you slip
in new coma and die of respiratory distress, you know.
(11:14):
But also got the impression that wasn't necessarily like that's
the path, Like it could start in the dumb stage
as well. Yeah, that's what I'm saying, Like, it would
just depend on where the virus, what part of your
brain the virus goes to. It's got to you know. Um.
Something I didn't realize about Raby's chuck was that it's
exclusive to mammals. I knew that it didn't, um, But
I also have wondered over the years, like why isn't
(11:37):
like a rabid squirrel would be your worst nightmare I imagine,
you know, because they'll already come at you. Yeah, you know,
a rabid one would definitely come out you're one of
the One of the traits of or symptoms of rabid
mammal is that a wild one has no fear of humans. Yeah,
they're aggressive. Um. In fact, there's a case I looked up,
(11:58):
as I often do, just in the news, and a
little boy in New Jersey just this week was attacked
by raccoon. This raccoon leapt onto his back while he
was walking down the street during the day. And we
will get to the hallmarks. But that's very important. If
you see a nocturnal animal cruising around during the day
at great speeds, stay away. You're not supposed see racoons
(12:22):
in the neighborhood during the day. Yeah, just go get
your pause bb gun. Well, I don't know about that,
but call animal control and they'll get there. Be begun. Um.
But yeah, this little boy was was this raccoon jumped
on his back and started biting his face and neck.
Where did you learn to pronounce rac raccoon? Now I
say raccoon. That's just one of my jokes. People don't
(12:45):
know though. When I said Alex Baldwin, people literally wrote
in were like, it's Alec, how did you miss thirty Rock?
And Alec Baldwin said, I don't care. Yeah, I don't
know who this chuck is. So anyway, um, you're right. Um,
the little boy I think is gonna be okay, which
is a good news, but it's uh, well, we'll get
(13:07):
to the rarity of it. Plus he was attacked in
New Jersey, which is in the US which means he's
gonna be just fine. Right, But a long way of
saying that um, squirrels and mice and and other smaller
animals typically don't get it, and it makes good sense.
It's because if they are attacked by a rabid animal,
they're they're small and probably won't survive. Like if they
(13:28):
could very well get rabies. Every sign says they can,
but they'll probably pour A little mouse will probably just die, right,
because if a raccoon gets its hands on a mouse
and it bites it, that saliva is gonna be transmitted
to the wound. But you also need the host to
be alive for the virus to replicate in that host
exactly if their neck is broken and they're dead, then
(13:50):
that it's not gonna work. But yeah, absolutely, but you said, yes,
you can get a woodchuck with rabies. Woodchuck's raccoons Apparently
in the United States, reck wounds are the most common
vector for the disease um. Now, yes, uh, but for
the most part, it's larger, slight, slightly larger small mammals.
(14:11):
Does that make sense? Wood chucks, raccoons, medium sized mammals,
medium size On the smallest side, a small to medium
a medium sized mammal. The means like um, I guess
kay uh. And it takes a few months for the
diseased or on its course, an animal. But the scary
thing is it can lie dormant in humans for years,
(14:34):
months or years. That's very scary, super scary. Yeah, because
you guys don't realize this, Like you think it's like
frossing at the mouth or something. No, the rabies virus
is one of the scariest viruses on the planet. It
is um so like I said, saliva is the mode
of transmission for most rabies cases, and you can catch
(14:54):
it very easily. Technically, if you had like an open
wound and you like rubbed your finger where the open
moond was. I guess I should have specified that earlier.
On the saliva of a rabid raccoon, you could easily
catch rabies, right, But that's an uncommon thing to do.
You could also if you um took the brain of
(15:16):
that raccoon and rubbed it on your open wound to
your finger, you could also catch it. Even more uncommon.
But if you came across a raccoon's poop that was
rabid and he took it and just rubbed it all
over your hands. The camouflage, the scent of your hand
probably the most uncommon. You would not catch rabies. That's
what the good news. Yeah, it doesn't transfer in the
(15:38):
feces or the blood or the p Yeah, the urine.
P uh oh man, it's been p fest at my house.
You want a little quick side story. I changed the
litter box before I went to Birmingham, and four days
later we realized that I didn't put litter in the
(15:58):
litter box, eat it, put the lid back on, put
it back in, rushed out of the door to drive
to Birmingham, and four days later we're like, our cats
are sick because they're peeing on everything in the house.
Emily went over and she went, hey, well, I won't
say what she said. It wasn't hey honey, Uh, guess what.
(16:18):
There's a lake of urine in the litter box and
it's all your fault. So we had to throw a
lot of things away in our home that previously we're
working just fine. Man, And uh, I got the Dummy
of the Year award in our house. That's cool. You
should instagram that trophy. Tell me of the year. Yeah,
that's just it's a tattoo now on my on my
(16:40):
lower back of Alfreddy Newman. So anyway, we we've been
in urine lands. It is so gross and cat pea
is not you know, it's it's tough to mask. So
we're really of man, what a dummy. So anyway, just
the moral of the story is litter is a very
(17:01):
important part of the letter box. So and luckily if
your cats are rabid, you wouldn't have caught anything from that. No,
but I'm sure i have what's it called, what's the
cat disease from changing letter? Oh, toxic plasmos has gone.
I'm sure I've had that for years. Um, that's why
you do most of the things you do, that's right.
(17:22):
So uh, it is a very adaptive disease. Um. And
here's another scary thing, although it's it's not that scary
because it's super super rare, but in laboratories it has
been transmitted through the air aerosol transmission, and they have
found one case where it actually happened in the wild.
But it was a cave that had like tens of
(17:44):
millions of infected bats like sneezing and coughing up their junk. Everywhere.
And in that case, uh, someone got raby supposedly thick
the air three into the cave in Texas. But that
that's uh again not something you need worry about. Yeah,
but humans can spread it to and remember you can
spread it through saliva, which means that if you are kissing,
(18:09):
especially kissing with tongue style a rapid person. And remember
it can take months, if not years, for the symptoms
to set on. UM, you could conceivably catch rabies from that.
You can also catch it as an STD to sexual contact.
They believe this is the CDC theorizing. At this point
(18:30):
there's no documented cases um. And then you could also
conceivably catch it from like sharing a cigarette with somebody
or drinking after somebody using the same glass. Again in theory,
any transmission of shared saliva. But here's the scariest one
to me, Um, it has happened before where you get
a transplant of an organ, typically a corneal transplant, and
(18:54):
get rabies that way. Yeah, it's like we accidentally gave
you a corn it with rabies. Yeah. Sorry, And one
of the problems do you think, well, how could that
possibly happen? Apparently rabies is very hard to detect and
the main place is to detect it. Remember, it doesn't
show up in your blood or anything like that. I
(19:15):
know you're in feces is um, in the saliva and
in the uh um brain. Well yeah, and the saliva.
It's not even super accurate and it takes longer. So
for the past forty years in the United States, the
way they test for rabies if an animal has bit
your child as they capture it and they cut its
head off and inspect the brain. Right, that's horrifying, it is.
(19:41):
But unfortunately, like necessary, I guess of a raccoon bite
your kid off with the head. Maybe an animal lover
out there who's developing scientists will come up with a better,
more accurate rabies test that will save the lives of
thou Since millions of wood chucks around the world. But
(20:02):
I wonder how many times they've been like, oh, thankfully,
no rabies. Yeah no, I'm sure, but sorry, your head
has cut off. Yeah, Like imagine being the clinician who
did that. It's kind of bumm you out. Yeah, absolutely,
because it's like this thing's head was cut off because
somebody thought it had rabies. Terrible all right, So, um,
everybody UM knows through popular culture and things like Old
(20:27):
Yellow that the foaming of the mouth of a crazy
looking dog is a pretty good sign to stay clear.
But there are many other ways, especially if they have
the dumb form that you might not know. Uh. And
here are some of the symptoms. Partially we're fully paralyzed
animal loss of appetite, and a lot of these can
be confused for other things. Because my dearly deceased dog
(20:49):
Lucy probably ticked off about nine. She really like strange
behaviors like snapping at the air or turning in circles.
Lucy did that. Uh. Nocturnal animals who wander during the day. Um,
Like I said, if you see a raccoon walking around
during the day, it's not a good sign. Drool excessively.
(21:10):
Lucy drooled. Wild animals who show no fear of humans. Uh.
Signs of pikea like eating things that aren't food. Lucy
did that all the time, UM. Sporadic changes in mood
or behavior Lucy restless or aggressive, no, obviously disoriented Lucy.
And then a change in voice which I thought was strange.
(21:33):
She was like uh. And generally it varies by regions,
so like maybe here in the South, raccoons or maybe
in another place that might be skunks largely, right with
the animals that have it the most. Um. Yeah, but
apparently in the United States it's raccoons for sure, they
(21:54):
have the most. But the mode of transmission in the
United States UM comes through bats more frequently. Yeah, that's
the big days. So if you get like a hundred
bats and a hundred raccoons, more raccoons are going to
have rabies. But you're more likely to catch rabies from
a bat than a raccoon. Yeah. And why is that. Well,
(22:15):
there's a few reasons bats can get into places that
raccoons can't. Um and Uh. Bats also have very tiny teeth. Uh.
And if you're sleeping in a room and you wake
up and there's a bat in it, it's recommended that
you kill that bat and take it in for rabies testing. Um.
(22:36):
So then they can kill it for you. They can
do your dirty work for you. Um. But the reason
why is because a bat's teeth are so fine that
you can have been bitten in the night and it
wouldn't have woken you up. You won't you won't know
that you were bitten, but you may have contracted rabies
in that case. C R excellent episode on bats, yeah,
(22:58):
which which is excita because they bats are wonderful. Remember
Louis came like bat crazy over that one. Yeah, very
bat friendly podcast. Yeah, so don't don't kill it bets.
As a matter of fact, just look the other way
if you see a bat in your room, because something
bad is gonna happen to that bad. If your dog,
we'll take a break after this. But if your dog
(23:18):
is potentially bitten by an animal you think it might
be rabid, they will be isolated for ten days, um,
and if they make it through that ten days, then
you're home free. If they don't. Sadly, that means you
have to go the old yellow route, except these days
it's much more humane. Well I don't know about more humane,
but they don't take it behind the bart and shoot it.
(23:40):
Yeah yeah, I mean I would call that more humane.
But in you know, rural Texas, they might be like, no,
that's quick and easy and painless, just like the shot
with the lethal injection. Yeah, I'm sure that's what they
call in Texas. Okay, all right, let's take a break.
Then I'm gonna get your stuff together, get my stuff
(24:02):
together and we'll come back with more rabies. Chuck. You
(24:24):
ever been to Bali? Nope? Do you haven't neither by Bali, um,
like Hawaii and some other places around the world, is
actually a UM it was a rabies free zone, a
place where like no cases of rabies have been reported. Uh.
They're usually isolated, which makes it hard to get rabies
(24:45):
into and they usually also have some um really top
Nutch governmental restrictions, like if you try to take a
dog in or out of Hawaii, it takes a very
long time and a lot of paperwork. And one of
the reasons why it's because they don't want rabies come
going into their to their states. Taking moment Hawaii. No,
that's why she would be but no, we basically she
(25:06):
would get out of quarantine about the time we were leaving.
So um, but my in laws moved and they took
their dogs with them, and yeah, it was a big deal. Yeah,
but in Bali specifically, they were rabies free until two
thousand and eight, and um, some dogs contracted rabies somehow
and bit some people and some people died and it
(25:27):
was a big deal. There goes our rabies free designation. Yeah,
so they can get it back right. Well, yeah, um,
the government has been eradicating aggressively the rabies that was
found on the island. And I'm not sure if they're
doing this. I know they're doing a lot of euthanizing,
or they did in the affected areas. But in the
(25:48):
United States, UM, some wildlife services they're leaving basically what
amounts to like a high dose of um oral rabies
vaccine as tasty eight out just out in the woods
to try to like control rabies in the raccoon population.
Apparently doesn't harm humans or dogs too debate. And the
(26:09):
reason that they're doing this is because they saw what
a great work, what a great job at eradicating rabies
among dogs in the United States, because it used to
be that rabies in the US was very frequently transmitted
by dogs, and in a lot of the rest of
the world, Um, the dogs are still a major mode
(26:29):
of transmission, right, but in the US of rabies vaccination
push among um pets has really lowered that that in
the in the dog population especially, and push meaning laws. UM.
I don't think it's in every state now, but I
think most states now required by laws pretty sensible. Yeah,
(26:50):
if you have a pet. You should have a non
rabid pet. Yeah, Like he would say no, no, I don't,
I don't want my dog getting that. Rabies would say
that probably. So uh, this is the most recent stat
we have. In two thousand six, UM point zero one,
one of all rabies cases in the United States were
(27:12):
almost said feline were canine eleven thousands. Yeah, so that's
virtually nil and I believe um in two thousand six
that same year, not one case of rabies death came
from an American dog, not one case of human rabi's death. Correct. Yeah.
(27:34):
And then of all us wildlife rabies cases are bats,
which led to in two thousand six UM, two of
the three rabies related deaths were from bat transmissions bat bites. Yes,
could actually let me. I spoke wrong that it wasn't
in two thousand six. It was only since night there
(27:56):
has not been one case of death from an American dog. Man,
So that's great. They really kind of eradicated that here.
But elsewhere in the world. Um again, catching rabies from
being bitten by a dog is still a real problem.
As a matter of fact, the World Health Organization called
rabies among neglected diseases, one of the most most one
(28:20):
of the most neglected among neglected diseases, there's still thirty
thousand to seventy thousand people who die every year. It's
around one every ten minutes from rabies in the developing world. Like,
think about that in the United States, three people died
in two thousand and six. That was a bad year.
Seventy thousand people as much as seventy people around the
(28:43):
world are dying from rabies. And these, uh, the countries
that have these really high rabies mortality rates and humans
are also the ones that usually have, um the least
amount of money you pay for inoculations and also even
further have even less money to inoculate their dogs. So
there's a huge push right now among scientists be like, um,
(29:06):
the rest of the world, you guys need to pay
to eradicate rabies at least in the dog population around
the world. Do something. Uh. And and also when you
have that rural areas, they're not able to get to
the clinics to receive those regular inoculations. Yeah, because so
Pasteur came up with the rabies vaccine and basically his
(29:27):
technique has been only slightly altered over the years. Um,
that's still a series of shots in the United States
or the West. The ones that we have are five
shots over the course of a period of time, and
again it's boosting your immunity slowly. And it's a very
similar thing in the UH in what did the guy
(29:49):
in the in the emails say for the last the
last listener mail, instead of developing the lower income countries
in lower income countries, um, they they they have a
schedule as well. It's not all getting them at once.
They have to boost your immunity and it may not
be something like driving down the street to the minute
clinic to get this stuff done. You may have to
(30:10):
travel quite a ways and again miss some work. So
it's a big problem. Yeah, you mentioned pasteurs. Brilliant idea.
He used the it's called an attenuated UH form of rabies.
It's it's weakened but still alive that he gathered from
spinal cords of animals. These days they kind of do
the same thing, but it is not a live form
(30:30):
of the virus. It is a dead form of the virus.
But like you said, the same idea is that will
give you this slowly and before it reaches your spinal cord. Ideally, UM, ideally,
if you want to live, then you've built up the immunity. Uh,
there are some if you have some extra dough in
(30:51):
your pocket and want to help out some groups. There's
um a couple of groups that are working to eradicate
rabies in low income countries, like Rita Rabies in the
America's and Raby Free Raby's Free World are both working
to eradicate rabies elsewhere. Yeah, and if you have been
bitten by a animal that you were worried about, um,
I would just immediately, you know, if I got bitten
(31:14):
by a squirrel or something, I would go to the
doctor and just get it checked out. Obviously immediately. You
don't walk that one off. But here are some oh
this a little sting. Oh well, let's just see what happens.
Like the man who castrated himself and then sat down
to dinner in the nineteenth century. Remember we talked about him.
He read his Bible and then ate dinner and then
then went to the doctor. Right. Here are some of
(31:38):
the symptoms. And humans humans human beings, not human beings.
I bury it you, rabbit, stomach pains, a change in personality, anxiety.
I'm also biting at the air, uh, stomach pains, anxiety, restlessness, fever.
Do you have any of this? Nope, increased aggression, sore throat,
excessive saliva, hallucinations, delirium. If that's happening you, you are
(32:02):
really like, should go to the doctor. Yeah, coma at
that point you should have someone take you to the doctor.
And then something called hydrophobia, which we should cover. That
used to be a word for rabies, Like you could
say that person has rabies, or you could say that
person has hydrophobia, and it used to mean the same thing.
And what and why, what's the deal with hydrophobia? It's
a it's an intense, unreasonable fear of water that develops
(32:25):
from raby symptoms. Apparently, Yeah, because I think drinking is uh.
You have a very violent, painful spasms and responses to
trying to swallow water, and so you become fearful of water.
That's crazy, which is really really sad because you're drooling
and you're producing tons of saliva, but you also are
just dying of thirsty basically. But if you do drink anything,
(32:49):
the pain from your throat muscles contracting is so bad
that you will just not drink. You would just rather
not drink anything. And and apparently you become fearful of
even the concept of drinking, so you get scared of water.
That's also because your brain is deteriorating at a rapid rate. Man.
But yeah, this is not fun. This is not nice stuff.
(33:11):
And and again. For years and years and years and
years up until like the last few years, I think
that the common conventional wisdom was if you if rabies
got to your central nervous system, bye bye, we might
as well old yellow you because you're not going to
survive and you're going to die one of the worst
(33:31):
deaths we could think of. H And it wasn't until
two thousand uh four. Yeah, Gina, Gina, guys, I thought
you could say, Gina gershawn. No, it's like, oh, that's
what happened to her. Gina. Guys. She was a girl,
a teenager in Wisconsin who was bitten by a bat,
I think, and some doctor said, um, you're a goner,
(33:56):
but I'm not going to give up on you, Gina,
no way, no how uh sleep now, baby, I'm gonna
put you in a coma. And he put her in
a medically induced coma and it was enough so that
her body was able to fight off the Raby's infection.
So she survived the raby's infection without being inoculated previously,
(34:20):
and um apparently without the inoculation being given to her
in a rapid enough time. So she literally survived a
Raby's infection. And now they call that procedure of the
Milwaukee protocol, and it saved five more people's lives. They
call it that. Yeah, And there was a study in
Peru and uh in the Andies, a lot of Peruvian
(34:42):
groups live near baths, they have to deal with bats.
Apparently some Peruvians have developed immunity to rabies and they
documented I think about a dozen Peruvians who survived rabies
without any inoculations. So they're saying, Okay, this isn't a
one percent fatal disease. We can work with that. But
(35:02):
it's like really big Gangbusters news. Is it's almost like
a natural inoculation that's happening though the same idea right there,
getting exposed to it gradually. I don't know. I don't
know if that if these people had been bitten before,
or if some sort of inoculation was passed down to
them through heredity, you know, like I don't know. I'm
not sure. Like Grand Pappy was strong against the rabies, right,
(35:24):
So I am right, that's how the jeans work, all right.
From nineteen fifties to the roughly mid nineteen eighties. Uh,
the horror stories were true. You did get like upwards
of twenty to twenty three shots in the belly and
the abdomen to treat rabies big needles. Right. Yeah, there
was not an old wives tale. It was a very
(35:46):
painful procedure. Um. I tried to find out why it
was done in the belly, and the only thing I
could find it's completely unsubstantiated, but makes sense. Apparently after
you start having these shots, um, somewhere between ten and twenty,
you start having really bad reactions and inflammation, and but
(36:06):
you need to give them in the same area. So
the belly was the largest part of the body that
you could still find a place to give the injection.
So I don't know if this true or not. That
makes sense. Uh, And we have to mention Ozzy Osborne.
But biting the head off the bat, Yeah, it wasn't
a live bat. You know. Well, there's different stories. It
(36:28):
wasn't allow No, no no, he swears it was alive because
he felt the head moving in his mouth. Oh, other
people have said that it wasn't a lot. Of the
fan that threw the bat on stage said it was dead.
Azzis Azzi. He's like, it was a lot. Uh, thank you,
but that is not an old why. He also bit
(36:49):
the head off a pigeon at a party. But um,
he thought the bat was a toy. Apparently did bite
the bat's head and did get those injections as a
preventative measure, but he did not ever contract rabies. Smart um,
and this you know who knows. It's also called a
legend in some circles. So, but I think it really
happened documented. While I was researching this, I was like, wow,
(37:10):
I am not inoculated against rabies. Maybe I should just
go ahead and do that. Would be kind of neat
to be like, go ahead and bite me, raccoon, you're crazy, raccoon,
I'm fine, And then you could continue your ongoing battle
with your squirrels, your sports deck squirrels. Now the squirrels
one I had to take down the bird feeder. You
just gave up. Now. The kind of complex was like,
(37:32):
you're not allowed to have those the attract squirrels. I'm like, yeah,
no doubt they squirrels. I know. So I said there,
it's fine. You anything else, Nope, rabies. If you want
to know more about it, type that word into the
search bar how stuff works dot com. Are A B
y s and it will bring up this awesome article.
(37:54):
I know, I know. I'm just do it correctly that way.
R A B I E S. That's right? All right?
Uh did you say that? Oh? And since I misspelled something,
it's time for a listener mail. I'm gonna call this
um cringe worthy experience. Oh god, why did we ask? Hey,
(38:16):
guys have been listening for a couple of years, writing
for the first time to tell you a compelling story
about the time my dad's eyeball fell out of his head.
Perhaps I should say it was forced out of his head.
It takes place before I was born, But the way
he tells it, it will make you hesitant to go
water skiing. See, my dad was a mobbing force serve
in Las Vegas. In particular, you wouldn't want to let
(38:39):
your your body or your face become parallel to the
water surface when you're going around a bend in the river.
So when that happens. You can experience what happened to
my dad. His face skimmed to the water, and the
force of that cast his eyeball to pop right out
of his head. It's stuff that urban legends are made of.
So there my dad is in excruciating pain, treading water
(38:59):
with his eye ball in the palm of his hand.
If you're ever so lucky as to have your eyeball
outside of your head, hope that it's still attached. Like
my dad's eyeball was. Cum as he got river water
in his eye socket, he forced it back into his
eye socket and there was nothing else he could do
at that crucial moment. As I understand that, he never
went to see a doctor, and as I has been
(39:23):
turned at a three to five degree angle. Ever his
name is John Rambo. That is crazy. She said. He
was relieved six months later while the white static he
was seeing slowly started to return and he had normal
vision once again. That's outcome bias. If I've ever seen it, cringe,
if you experienced any squeamish feelings, I consider it his
(39:45):
story well told. Yeah, well well told story about that
is from Lena or Lina in California to California boy.
I don't know. Her dad has made of some tough stuff.
If he did not be good to a doctor, he's
like hero not oh simohia. Yeah it's crazy. So uh
(40:06):
did somebody else wrote in and got me um about
having to get shots like up their nose? That one
got me too, So whoever wrote in with that one
hats off. Well. At least this guy got a great
nickname out of it, Old River Water Sucket, Jimmy the Mouthful. Uh.
If you have a crunch versy story, keep it to yourself,
(40:29):
send us something else in via tweet to s y
s K podcast, or join us on Facebook dot com,
uh slash stuff you should Know? Send us an email
to Stuff podcast. At House supports dot com and has
always joined us at at Home on the web. Stuff
You Show dot com. For more on this and thousands
(40:51):
of other topics, Does it House Stuff works dot com
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