Rabies

 Do not be afraid; 

our fate cannot be taken from us;

 it is a gift.

~ Dante Alighieri, Inferno

It's a rambling story...sorry.

Mom was a a real scientist. A bacteriologist,* her training and work experience certainly had an impact on us as we grew up in the wilds of south Texas. She regularly explained "the germ theory of disease" to us and so we washed our hands and sanitized the dishes. She had worked at the state health department before moving south with Daddy to raise four rowdy children. And even with her knowledge of all we could be exposed to, Mom encouraged us to be regular kids.

We spent time outdoors and knew to be cautious of stinging insects and arachnids. We knew how to avoid places where the rattlers** and cottonmouths*** hung out. Mom and Dad gave us a love of the environment and opportunities to experience wilderness. And we had what some consider a charmed childhood. We climbed to the top of the mesquite trees, rode our bikes, played hide-n-seek all over the place, caught crawdads in rain-swollen ditches and flooded fields and wandered our extended neighborhood. We climbed the dirt piles and explored the woods unconstrained by hovering parents.

We all fished and hunted and my brothers trapped for a time. The trapping seems to have been short lived. I'm not sure when it started, but I do know when it ended. One day my brother came back from checking the traps having been bitten by a raccoon he'd caught. The raccoon had a big bite out of him from another animal. They killed the raccoon and sent its head to the state health department for rabies testing. ****

We all knew about the painful series of shots one would take in the event the tests were positive for rabies. Friends/relatives had been there. No one wanted to go through the shots unless absolutely necessary. Mom had long told us about a friend from the health department, who was responsible for the rabies testing, who had somehow contracted the disease and died. It was (and is) not a pretty death. Back then, no one who contracted the disease survived.*****

The results came back negative, but we still watched and waited (as an animal can have and share rabies without it showing up in the brain). In fact, I became obsessed and researched rabies in the all-knowing Encyclopedia Britannica and in every reference book I could get my hands on. I learned a lot about rabies. I learned the incubation period, generally about a week to 10 days, can be as long as months or even years (I'll let you look that up yourself). I prayed hard and watched my brother. I think I gave the disease 2 months. After my arbitrarily imposed two month period of worry, I thought he was probably safe, but I was different. I am not sure I ever got over that sense of foreboding and helplessness and uncertainty.

So when the subject of rabies comes up, I pay attention. When someone is bitten I know to wash the wound with soap and water and check shot records. I've discussed the effectiveness of rabies vaccinations in dogs and cats (3 years, but they make you do it every year so it gets done and you don't forget). I've lectured people who ignored rabies shots for their wandering cats and for their "she never leaves the house" dogs. I've fretted over the wild baby squirrels a neighborhood child brought home. I worried when I heard my nephew had a dead bat in his desk at school. I listened with rapt attention to the "bat lady" teach us about rabies in bats and refused to handle the live bat she brought with her (why take a risk?). And I make sure my animals - even the stray cats who hang out around the house from time to time - are vaccinated.

A week or so ago I saw that an old building across from my studio/classroom was about to be torn down. My former employer had purchased the property and was clearing the tract. I noticed some of my former co-workers preparing for the "tear down" and walked over to talk. "What did they use this for?" I asked. The answer surprised me. The place had a bit of a checkered past - communications company, this and that, and once there was a veterinarian who manufactured rabies vaccines in the building. There were furnaces for the cremation of animals in the back. AND, or so the rumor went, the vet somehow contracted and died of rabies.

Researching the literature on rabies, specifically rabies in Texas, is much easier to do these days. The answers are about the same (other than that rates of rabies are down, shots are much better, and more people - although still a tiny number of those who contract the disease - survive).

I had to know if the rumor was true. Did a veterinarian who worked in that low white concrete building actually die of rabies?

Yes.

It is thought that a piece of equipment he used - something like a blender - aerosolized the virus and that this veterinary microbiologist was exposed during a time he had a respiratory illness becoming sick and dying of rabies in 1972.******

Rabies In Texas, A Historical Perspective, is a fascinating article for those interested in the disease as it has appeared in Texas. I've provided a link to the article below. And it includes the story of the veterinary microbiologist AND the 1956 death of George Menzies, entomologist/rabies researcher and my mother's co-worker - how it is thought he too was exposed to aerosolized virus (in a cave in Uvalde County where he was studying bats). At the time he had a skin infection and poison ivy lesions which were the likely entryway for the rabies virus to enter his system. 

I remember talking to Mom about him a number of times. She had wondered if there had not been a tear in his gloves in the laboratory or some other error that allowed exposure to the virus. I don't think she ever knew how the disease had been contracted.*******


NOTES:

*She went to college to be an interior decorator and fell in love with a science class. She worked in a lab at the health department. I have some of the pans they used to sterilize instruments (apparently just the perfect size when cooking for one or two).

**When we were kids we played on a couple of large dirt piles (possibly build during construction of our subdivision). We called one the Big Hill (although there was another "Big Hill" over by the creek that was REALLY big) and the other the Little Hill. We were long grown and gone when those hills were flattened. Mom said they found some 10 rattlesnake nests in one of the hills and she "almost had a heart attack" remembering how much time we spent playing there.

***All southerners know to be on guard for cottonmouths. They enjoy the shores of lakes and streams. It's wise to watch where you step.

****My brother tells me he was 11 or 12 when this incident occurred and the constable drove the raccoon head some 3 hours to Austin for the test. He was a good man.

*****Information on Rabies: https://www.cdc.gov/rabies/ and  
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs099/en/ and 
http://www.waco-texas.com/userfiles/cms-healthdepartment/file/RABIES%20PREVENTION%20IN%20TEXAS%202016.pdf

******It took "some doing" as my mother would say, but I finally found the identity of the veteranian who died. He was Dr. Earl Lawrence Mundell. Born in New York, he lived in Temple for "years" according to his death certificate. He became sick and a week later died on March 9, 1972. His case was the subject of an article in JAMA and at least one Texas medical periodical. It took a search of death certificates for his date of death to find him. The cause of death is listed as respiratory failure, encephalomyelitis, and by cvs virus, a shorthand for the rabies virus.


******* I always thought it strange that Mom didn't know how her friend had died until I learned it was in 1956. I was born that year. Mom was busy mothering a busy two-year-old and new baby.


Rabies In Texas, A Historical Perspective  - https://www.dshs.texas.gov/idcu/disease/rabies/history/historyInTexas.pdf 

See also:  Rabies Transmission by Non-bite Route https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1914752/?page=1


FINAL NOTE:

VACCINATE YOUR ANIMALS (and your children while you are at it - different diseases, but same theory). Be careful about handling wild animals. If you are bitten, WASH the wound, seek medical treatment and quarantine the animal or have it tested.