rabies
Meaning of rabies: Rabies is a viral infection transmitted through the saliva of an infected mammal, almost always fatal once neurological symptoms appear.
Definition of rabies
Rabies is a viral infection that attacks the nervous system, spread most often through the bite of an infected mammal such as a dog, bat, raccoon, or fox, when virus present in saliva enters a wound. The virus travels along nerves toward the brain, a process that can take weeks to months depending on the site of the bite and its distance from the head.
Early symptoms are often nonspecific, including fever, headache, and general weakness, sometimes accompanied by unusual sensations near the site of the bite. As the infection progresses to affect the brain, it produces confusion, agitation, muscle spasms, difficulty swallowing, excess salivation, and eventually paralysis.
Once these neurological symptoms develop, rabies is almost always fatal, which is why exposure to a potentially rabid animal is treated as a time sensitive concern and why vaccination is used both to prevent infection in advance and to stop the virus after a known exposure but before symptoms begin.
Used in a sentence
Post-exposure treatment was initiated promptly after the patient reported a bite from a stray animal, given concern for possible rabies exposure.
Good to know
Rabies is easily confused with other causes of acute encephalitis early in its course, since the disease's hallmark neurological symptoms appear only after a variable incubation period that can last weeks to months following the bite that caused infection.
Word origin
Where “rabies” comes from
Formed from Latin rabies, meaning madness or rage, from rabere, meaning to rave, an early reference to the aggressive, agitated behavior the disease can produce.