ABSTRACT
In recounting the events leading to the discovery of vampire bat rabies, historians frequently overlook the virtually simultaneous discovery of rabies in insectivorous bats in Brazil during the 1920s and in frugivorous bats in Trinidad during the 1930s. 1 – 4 The first definitive diagnosis of rabies in a nonhematophagous bat was made in a frugivorous bat in Port of Spain, Trinidad, when an Artibeus planirostris flew into a “chemist’s” shop the morning of September 10, 1931. 4 Subsequent surveys of captured bats in Trinidad showed that 4% were rabid, mostly vampires but also some frugivorous and insectivorous bats. Not until 1953, however, when a young boy in Florida was attacked by a rabid yellow bat, 5 was there impetus to fully investigate rabies in nonhematophagous bats.
