ABSTRACT
Rabies is one of the oldest recorded diseases of animals. It was described by Aristotle in the fourth century B.C. (cited by Friedberger and Frohner) 1 as a disease in which “dogs suffer from madness which puts them in a state of fury, and all animals they bite, when in this condition, become also attacked by rabies”. We now know that all animals that are bitten do not develop rabies; however, once signs of the disease appear, it is almost invariably fatal. For this reason, the emphasis of rabies research has been on the development of vaccines rather than on treatment.
