Reddit reviews Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus

Folk tales of supernatural beings such as vampires, zombies and werewolves are thought to be misdiagnosis of human rabies.

It is a terrifying disease because it is neurological. It kills you by removing your humanity.

If you want to know more, I suggest Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus.

(Rabid)[http://www.amazon.com/Rabid-Cultural-History-Worlds-Diabolical/dp/0670023736/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342794228&sr=8-1&keywords=rabid] is all the rage right now. It's about rabies and has lots of gory details on how the virus works, as well as its role in history.

Oh, another one I read fairly recently was Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus. That one wasn't bad, but I was kind of hoping for more medicine in it, instead of, erm, more of a cultural history. I, uhh, didn't really think that one through all the way.

Rabies is often brought up in the Werewolf legends. 1.) just like rabies, the bite of a werewolf results in you becoming one 2.) rabies, in the acute and final stages, results in the victim losing control and often regressing into a "animalistic" behaviour. 3.) dogs are the most obvious, and most often cause of rabies bites 4.) rabies takes about a month to fully progress into the paranoia/hydrophobic/degranged stage, about the same length as full moon cycles (this one is a bit more out there, but a reasonable deduction)

A great book on exactly this is Rabid: http://www.amazon.com/Rabid-Cultural-History-Worlds-Diabolical/dp/0670023736

I find that science history and biography gives a good understanding of scientific methods, and when written for the lay-person, doesn't get so bogged down in technical jargon.

Here are a few of my favorites:

• A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
  
• Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
  (Also check out his biographies of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman)
  
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach
  
  And here are a few on my to read list:
  
  
• Seeing Further: The Story of Science, Discovery, and the Genius of the Royal Society - Bill Bryson
  
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari
  
• The Butchering Art: Joseph Lister's Quest to Transform the Grisly World of Victorian Medicine - Lindsey Fitzharris
  
• Rabid: A Cultural History of the World's Most Diabolical Virus - Bill Wasik & Monica Murphy
  
• The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring - Richard Preston
  
• The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science - Richard Holmes
  
• The Invention of Science: A New History of the Scientific Revolution - David Wootton
  
  I hope that helps.

For more reading, this just came out Rabid