REALizing rage #5: rabies, oh what a virus!

The specific ways that rabies affects the nervous system, its sole target, can tell us volumes about human behavior, normal and abnormal, and human development, from infant to the fully socialized, highly civilized beings we are expected to become as adults. It can show us the extent to which humans act as vampires and werewolves, and the meaning of such behavior. Yet, the rabies virus has not given up its knowledge, although it has been part of our written history since writing began.

So what is this rabies, this lyssavirus that I am rabid to understand? Briefly, it is a virus…