Diseases have a history, and understanding that history helps us understand how best to treat and control disease today. Today's students are confronted with a panoply of often-frightening illnesses and afflictions - the Biography of Diseases series provides students with the information that they need to understand the origin of various maladies, how they impact contemporary society, and how doctors and diseases researchers from around the world are fighting to devise treatments to alleviate or cure these. This volume, Rabies, examines that disease that caused fear and panic for centuries because of the horror of dying of rabies and the near certainty of death once one has contracted the disease. And despite the famous vaccine discovered by Louis Pasteur in the 19th centuries, thousands still die of rabies every year in developing countries. Rabies addresses all aspects of this horrifying disease: BLThe history and epidemiology of rabies, and the rabies epidemic among wild animals in the use. BLHow rabies is diagnosed, and the frightening symptoms of hydrophobia and aerophobia. BLHow one get rabies, mostly from bats and wild animals. BLThe treatment of rabies -- there's basically none, with few people who have ever survived once symptoms appear. BLResearch and prevention of rabies. The volume includes a glossary of terms and a bibliography of useful sources for learning more about the disease.