I went looking for this book that must exist, thinking I’d buy it for Monica as a gift. I was especially hung up on the word rabid - this term for a fatal illness that over time took on a set of really extreme meanings: terrible hate but also, somehow, terrible love, too. Why did you decide to write a book about rabies?īW: One day, after one of these conversations, I had the thought that someone must have written a cultural history of rabies. One of the veterinarian’s most solemn duties is to protect people and animals from rabies.

Even though rabies is rare in the United States, it’s thoroughly covered in vet school. For me, I think I got re-interested in veterinary school. I never actually saw a rabid animal as a vet, but I used to tell you about it: how it hijacks animals to spread itself. MM: Wasn’t any kid on any playground in the 1980s interested in rabies?īW: Well, sure. How did you each first become interested in rabies? I discussed Rabid with Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy over email, where, among other things, the two talked about how rabies predicted our current state of vaccination-hysteria, how their book is Twilight meets Marley & Me, and why you should never, ever, ever go near a bat.

Except with this book, you’ll come away with hundreds of creepy facts (Did you know that ancient map-makers from completely separate cultures used a dog’s head to symbolize the edge of the known world - and thus the place of mysterious danger? That was probably because of rabies!) You also might find yourself seeing signs of rabies, or at least its paw-shaped footprint, practically everywhere. Rabid is also, I hesitate to admit, a fun read, rivaling a Stephen King novel for page-turning thrills.

It’s also a history of the relationship between humans and dogs - with rabies standing in the way of full best-friendship status for centuries, and an account of our species’ often (terribly) humorous attempts to prevent or conquer the disease, which until relatively recently had a 100% fatality rate in humans. In Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus, Wasik and Murphy explore rabies’ influence on such diverse subjects as immunology, 19th-century celebrity, religion, and, of course, zombies, werewolves, and vampires. Is there a disease more sensationally gruesome, more thrillingly disturbing than rabies? The macabre virus, which has haunted the imaginations (and nightmares) of nearly every human culture for thousands of years, is the subject of a new nonfiction book by Wired journalist Bill Wasik and veterinarian Monica Murphy, a husband-and-wife team perfectly matched to tackle the cultural history of this most dreaded of zoonotic infections.

Rabid bill wasik