Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus
By: Bill Wasik, Monica Murphy / Narrated By: Johnny Heller
Length: 8 hrs and 8 mins
Can Rabies be a lot of fun?!? Why, yes! It can! HUZZAH!
First, I must thank y’all for choosing Rabid as My Next Listen; it was truly a blast! I can see both Wasik and Murphy jet setting across the globe to gather material for this wonderful book and to see the disease full-blown for themselves (in Bali… modern day… I KNOW, right?).
It blends all my favorites of History, Science, some Mythology, and lots of sleuthing and lots of roll-up-your-sleeves white-knuckle stick your hands into the jaws of an attacking dog kinda work.
It opens with buttloads of humor, and Johnny Heller as a narrator shows his true genius from the get-go. There’s an ancient joke, which may’ve lost something from the passage of telling but certainly not from Heller’s delivery—it’s to die for. Then, as the material gets more serious and gruesome symptoms are gone into, his tones get more urgent, more shocking. Especially as we came to that which I did not know—apparently, in those final horrific throes of the disease, men suffer the further hell of near-constant sexual arousal, a frightening series of hypersensitive libido which CAN’T be too comfortable. But as your body is rebelling violently and the disease is progressing in AWFUL ways, well, maybe 30 sudden ejaculations aren’t as terrible as all the rest. But still… HELL!
The only part I didn’t really like, tho’ I didn’t reject it as much as I did the first time I listened to the book, was the ENTIRE chapter devoted to vampires and werewolves. As the authors named the Twilight series, I can only assume that THAT literary travesty was the reason for the chapter’s inclusion. I mean, maybe I kinda sorta get it: Bats, rabies, VAMPIRES? Hmm, well okay. Still, I thought the entire concept of titillating vampires amongst so much wonderful history and science kinda stood out like a sore thumb. But there you go…
Near the end is a chapter on some people who’ve actually survived the 100% fatality rate using what became known as The Milwaukee Protocol. That ANYone has survived it, sans the immediate vaccines which are the ONLY way we’ve known to treat the disease, is pretty WOW-ish. But even then, survival is only the first step. The people who’ve survived go on to loooooong rehabilitation sessions, having to learn to crawl, to talk, to feed themselves before walking is even a dream.
And then we wind up where Wakik and Murphy see their first rabid dog in Bali, where a single dog brought into the country spread rabies throughout the entire place, bringing chaos, violence, and death to the area. Vaccinating the dogs is viewed as too costly, so cruel culling, by poison, by bludgeoning animals to death is the name of the game. It’s a horrible process, but it’s a time-tested one, but it still makes for some serious listening.
Barely over 8 hours, Rabid is a blast and a half, and if you’re in the mood for the gruesome with some wry humor liberally sprinkled in, go for it. Rabies is an age-old scourge, and you’ll come out shaking your head that we STILL, well, at least in the early 20th century, were treating it by placing threads from holy clothing of saints into animal bites as a preferred method of treatment. Who knew?!?
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