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> 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/Rabi

• interroboink 3y ago
  Oh, 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 ago
  They're probably thinking of syphilis (although even its origin is debated via yaws)