Rabid by Monica Murphy, Bill Wasik Read Free Book Online Page A

survived and been set at liberty; a clod from a swallow’s nest, applied with vinegar; the young of a swallow, reduced to ashes; or the skin or old slough of a serpent that has been cast in spring, beaten up with a male crab in wine.
    “This slough,” Pliny adds, “put away by itself in chests and drawers, destroys moths.”
    To the credit of Pliny, and of Celsus (with one exception, below), all these proffered treatments address the rabid dog or its bite, not hydrophobia itself. But even the fatal manifestation of the disease occasioned some elaborate and entirely chimerical cures. Oddly, the methodists, whose observations about hydrophobic symptoms became increasingly admirable over the centuries, seem to get more addled when the subject is treatment. Both the anonymous Greek text and, later, Soranus himself wrote of treatment as if recovery were more likely than not. They recommended creating a spa-like atmosphere. “Have patients suffering from hydrophobia lie in rooms with good air well tempered,” remarked the anonymous author. “Massagehis limbs,” added Soranus, and “cover with warm, clean wool or cloths those parts that are affected by spasm.” Both authors presented hydrophobia as an acute attack that would often recede in time—a bewildering judgment that flies in the face of observable facts. They prescribed various poultices made from dates crushed with quinces, or olive oil, or ripe melon, or vine tendrils, or coriander. Some unnamed physicians, cited by Soranus, recommend that a plaster be made from hellebores—the flowering perennials—and applied to the anus.
    The most remarkable, and perhaps fitting, prescription for hydrophobia is the one offered by Celsus, who, as noted previously, had the good sense to admit that there was “little help” for the hydrophobic patient at all. Yet he apparently could not refrain from offering just one little cure: that is, “to throw the patient unawares into a water tank which he has not seen beforehand.” He explains this method to be, as we might say today, win-win:
    If he cannot swim, let him sink under and drink, then lift him out; if he can swim, push him under at intervals so that he drinks his fill of water even against his will; for so his thirst and dread of water are removed at the same time.
    If this proto-waterboarding happens to spur muscle spasms in the subject, Celsus recommends he be “taken straight from the tank and plunged into a bath of hot oil.” A patient could be forgiven for preferring hydrophobia to that particular fate.
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    * In the philosopher’s defense, R. H. A. Merlen, author of a fine volume entitled
De Canibus: Dog and Hound in Antiquity,
surmises that
cynanche
was actually itself a form of rabies—so-called dumb rabies, in which the afflicted dog, rather than raging, stands mute with its mouth agape. Merlen points out that Aristotle characterizes
cynanche
as fatal in dogs, unlike any commonly presenting throat malady.
    * Xenophon even enumerates, at humorous length, a list of ideal names for hounds: Psyche, Pluck, Buckler, Spigot, Lance, Lurcher, Watch, Keeper, Brigade, Fencer, Butcher, Blazer, Prowess, Craftsman, Forester, Counsellor, Spoiler, Hurry, Fury, Growler, Riot, Bloomer, Rome, Blossom, Hebe, Hilary, Jolity, Gazer, Eyebright, Much, Force, Trooper, Bustle, Bubbler, Rockdove, Stubborn, Yelp, Killer, Pêle-mêle, Strongboy, Sky, Sunbeam, Bodkin, Wistful, Gnome, Tracks, Dash—“short names,” he reasons, “which will be easy to call out.”



 

    The basilica at Saint-Hubert, 2010 .

2
THE MIDDLE RAGES
    O n the subject of Saint Hubert, protector of hunters, healer of rabies sufferers, we might as well begin with the myth; for while the truth about his life remains stubbornly opaque, it was the myth, and not the truth, that brought generations of fearful dog-bitten pilgrims from across Europe, by foot and horse and eventually even train, to be cured at the site where his holy relics resided.
    The myth begins