4 ms·
Rabies is a horrific disease. I can only imagine what it was like when it suddenly arrived on the scene. Apparently it spread from the New World, finding lots o
by interroboink 3y ago
Rabies is a horrific disease. I can only imagine what it was like when it suddenly arrived on the scene. Apparently it spread from the New World, finding lots of new hosts in the varied European dog breeds[1].
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620125/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5620125/
- bigbillheck 3y ago> Apparently it spread from the New World, That'd be a neat trick, considering that the Sumerians wrote about it. (per Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rabies#History)
- interroboink 3y agoOh, it seems you're right; I was misreading the paper. Thanks for the correction! I guess it's actually a bit muddy, but best guesses are that it's Old World indeed. Apparently it's hard to be sure since we don't know when/where dogs were domesticated, nor whether it started in bats. So yeah, definitely did not "suddenly arrive on the scene" as I had thought. ---- If you're interested, see the paper I linked; the section "The origin of rabies lyssavirus"
- selimthegrim 3y agoThey're probably thinking of syphilis (although even its origin is debated via yaws)